Excellent. Okay. These people probably have the microphones.
Yes.
That's what I'm guessing. I'd also like to say that our Chairman, Sidney Taurel, is here with us as well.
Should we take the first question from
Yes.
Nick Dempsey?
Yeah, good morning, everyone. I've got three questions, please.
Friend of Nick Dempsey.
First one, I'm assuming that your forecast of more than doubling Workforce Skills revenues by 2025 is all organic. If so, I'm kinda backing out 20%-25% organic growth for the three years beyond 2022. Inside that, are you assuming any reduction in the BTEC business in the U.K. as T Levels come on stream, or do you have a more optimistic assumption for that slice of the revenues? Second question, can you give us a sense of the scale of the stranded costs that you mentioned would be left behind once you'd sold the businesses under strategic review? The third question, in higher ed, Cengage sticks their version of MyLab and Mastering into Cengage Unlimited. Do you think that you'll have to do that eventually, to kind of match the product?
Will that represent another leg of revenue reduction per student as you get a kinda bundling effect there?
If you want, I'll start with the last question and then hand over to Sally for the first two questions. I think the way that certainly we look at our higher education business and why we started in the higher education business with Pearson + is we have a defined cohort of users of Pearson product today, about 10 million students, and they are a very low cost and efficient consumer acquisition tool. If you think of the cost of acquisition for those 2.75 million students , the majority of whom actually came through Mastering and MyLab into the Pearson + ecosystem, that is a very, very cost-effective way of generating scale within that community. Now as we add channels and other functionality to Pearson + this year and in the coming years, we create...
This is always why I said at the end of last year why that registered user number is very important. I hope now you kind of get a sense that there are really three phases in the evolution of Pearson +'s growth. Today, for those students who are using a Pearson textbook or MLM , later this year, actually starting now, any student in the U.S. and then any student globally, and with the increased functionality that I hinted at and the opportunity I hinted at the end of my presentation, we can expand that to anyone who kinda wants to learn anything and really utilize the leverage, the assets that we have. We are building a seamless integration between Mastering and MyLab into Pearson +.
The cost of that to a student and to your, the financial aspect of your question, we do not see a need for us to reduce that. We see you enter through the Mastering and MyLab funnel, and now, rather than go get an eText or get a physical book, you are sent into the world of Pearson +. When you're there in the future, you're able to discover a whole host of other features within higher education and beyond as we expand the product. Sally, would you like to pick up?
Good luck to you. Hi, Nick. On stranded costs, I'll update guidance at the point that we've got anything to say around those businesses at whatever point in the year it is. I'm sure you understand that presuming it's a normal disposal, there'll be TSAs in place for a while 'cause the other side will need those services. That will give us some time to work through how we eliminate any duplicated costs. We're talking about a cost of sort of GBP 10 million-GBP 15 million. On Workforce, I'll give you the sort of short financial answer, and then I'll pass over to Mike to give you a little bit more flavor.
For 2022, I've tried to break it down for you so that you can see the kind of underlying organic growth for the existing business, and then I've given you growth rates for the two acquisitions we've made. From 2022 to 2025, of course, they will be in the base of organic, going forward. Do you wanna add some flavor?
I'll just say on the effects of the Level 3 policy review on BTEC revenue, of course, that's a factor, but we have a wide portfolio of services. We're also a T Levels provider. We've got enough optionality in the portfolio to cover changes in consumer preference. As we guided you, we expect to see that part of the business continue to grow in the U.K. and internationally.
Where next, Jo?
Thanks. It's Omar Sheikh from Morgan Stanley. I've got, I suppose, three questions. First one, for Andy, it's a bit of a two-parter. Sticking with Workforce, if you look at your targets at 2025, you're talking about doubling the size of the business with double-digit margins. Really, you're talking about increasing operating profit by about GBP 30 million-GBP 40 million. Is that really ambitious enough in the context of the opportunity that you talked about in the $100 billion market, for example? That's the first question. Related to that, if you just take a step back and look at the strategy over the last year, you're one year into your transformation plan, do you think you're going fast enough? And how do you sort of-
Weigh the organic versus inorganic opportunities, particularly in the context of the, you know, very strong balance sheet that you still have. Then finally, maybe for Sally on higher ed. I'm gonna maybe try and pin you down on the revenue decline this year. I mean, it is quite a wide range. I mean, you're saying decline better than last year. Let's say we're talking about somewhere between -1% and -4%. Can you give us a sense of where you think it might land, bottom end or top end of that range? Thanks.
Great. Thanks, Omar. For your first part of your question on the opportunity for Workforce Skills, I think there's a phrase about underpromise and overdeliver comes to mind. We have spent a lot of time, in all seriousness, and Mike and the team, and actually as a cross-company effort. You know, the Workforce Skills part of the business, the division we set up, is part of a longer, and I think you've got a sense of that across the company. We've been doing business with enterprise for a long time, whether it's in PTE or Pearson VUE in terms of the credentialing. We have a lot of experience in this area and a lot of contacts, as Mike was referring to, over 2,000 corporate clients today. We have worked very deliberately on the strategy that Mike outlined for you.
I fully expect that we may be coming back to you in due course as we come to market and, you know, maybe realizing some potential upside because it is such a large market, and we believe that we have a unique proposition. We didn't want to follow, we wanted to innovate. I believe we've really truly created something that is uniquely Pearson, that really plays to our strengths, and we have seen really is being welcomed by corporates around the world at scale. You know, as we get more information, as we get more data that comes in, as we further integrate the Faethm and the Credly acquisitions into the Workforce Skills division, and more broadly actually into the company, then we're gonna get a better sense of what we really truly believe that opportunity is.
As mentioned, it is a huge market. As we're doing all of this and how we use our balance sheet and you know as it relates, I guess, two parts in terms of innovation within the company and our need to acquire new skills through acquisition. I think when I started, and actually when I first joined the board, thanks to Sidney, what really struck me was the power of the assets that this company has today. Really what we've been trying to do over the last 12 months is paint a new picture and understand which pieces of the jigsaw go into this new picture, and frankly, which pieces are missing. We are very targeted about bringing in the right talent and the right skills into the company.
The human capital aspect of our acquisitions is very, very important to me and to us as a company, in addition to the technology that we bring in. We're being very deliberate around how we use our balance sheet and how we look at acquisition targets, and then how we can integrate them into the company. More broadly, one of the things that maybe I hope you get a sense of today is the innovation culture that we are creating within the whole organization.
You know, I came back from the holidays, Christmas, and we meet as a group, by the way, and my other colleagues of the executive team are here on the front row every Monday for two hours, 'cause I think it's really important that we all share what we're doing and we're all aligned around, you know, what needs to be done today and also in the future. I came back in the first meeting, I said, "Right, we're gonna put a woman on the moon." That was, yeah. I said that because I was really always been struck by when President Kennedy said that in the 60s, how it galvanized an entire nation.
Really was typified, I guess, with the example of when President Kennedy was visiting NASA in Houston, and he's talking to a janitor who's sweeping the floor, who turns around to the president and who asks, "What are you doing?" He says, "Mr. President, I'm helping put a man on the moon." We're really getting a sense within the company of wherever you are, whatever you do, the over 20,000 employees of this company are all contributing to the success, not just of their own business, but to other businesses. That, I think, is very, very powerful in creating an innovative and accepting culture to do that.
I bought all of us Oculus headsets, and I do these monthly Ask Andy videos where I communicate out to the employees, and one of the employees saw that I had an Oculus headset on my desk behind me. They formed a tiger team. They weren't asked to do this, and sent me an email two days ago. They've created an intranet, and its members of you know these guys and others, employees from around the world who just went, "I wonder what it would look like if we went into the metaverse." Then they sent me an email. Jody, if you're watching this, and the team, because I haven't had time to reply to them, thank you. I will do.
There is, you know, that's the type of innovative culture that we are trying to engender within the company. Sorry, that was a very, very long answer. I didn't mean to go off on one. I can't remember what the other question was.
Higher-
I know it was higher ed. Oh, yeah.
Hi, Omar.
Anywhere between one and four.
Yeah. Right. I'm not gonna be specific about higher ed on a one-year basis, but what I am gonna emphasize is there's gonna be growth out to 2025. I think we've given you the moving parts around enrollments, market share, secondary recapture, that course enrollments piece. If you wanna be specific, I'll let you draw your own judgment, Omar. Anything you want to add?
No. I think you got it.
Very good.
Going to Jake and go to Katherine.
Morning, everyone. It's Katherine Tait from Goldman Sachs. A couple of questions from me. Firstly, you laid out, as you did with workforce, the great opportunity there is in assessments and qualifications and also in virtual learning. Similar question, really, you know, why is your sort of growth outlook as sort of conservative, or maybe you wouldn't describe it as conservative, as it is? You know, why can't assessments grow faster than that sort of low single-digit, particularly VUE and clinical? I understand the other stuff perhaps being slightly lower growth, but you know, why can't we see faster growth there? Similar for OPM, I think you talked about 14% growth, market growth level. You know, again, why are we talking about only mid-single digit in that market?
Second question on Workforce Skills. Curious, the contracts that you have won recently with corporate, like to understand, like how are you winning those? Like, what is it that are you displacing other competitors? Is it a completely new product that these corporates are bringing in in addition to other services they have? Are they displacing in-house solutions? Just keen to understand that a little bit better. Finally, on the buyback, if you as and when you are successful in selling the sort of businesses up for sale, could we anticipate further cash returns, or is that already baked into the GBP 350? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Have you met Bob and Art? To your first question. That earlier response about under promise and overdeliver. In all seriousness, I don't know. Art?
Yeah. Yeah, not a bad move to plagiarize the boss in the first such session like this. Under promise and overdeliver is absolutely a good mantra for all of us. We feel great about the assessment and qualifications business. We're very proud of the track record that we've shown in delivering that steady growth. We're planning on continuing the formula that has delivered that, the breadth of the portfolio, the coverage of the broad range of professions. Things like IT have certainly pulled things upward. Other areas like traditional students admissions maybe you know react to specific things like the COVID disruption to traditional admissions testing. That whole portfolio effect is what contributes to that low to mid-single digit growth.
We feel quite good about it when we add in the investments that we'll be making in geographic expansion and continuing to broaden the solution set. We're quite happy with being able to stand up here and say that. If we do, in fact, overdeliver, we'll be happier still.
Perfect. Mike, do you wanna touch on the-
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm gonna follow Art's example standing, actually. I could talk to you about this for hours, and I'm not going to, 'cause we have other things we need to talk about. Just a couple of points about this market that I think are really important to keep in mind. The first one is, it is highly fragmented at the moment, and it's changing very, very rapidly. That's creating a lot of friction and churn for companies. It also means that no company yet has really, in this new space, achieved even single digit market share. There's a lot of demand and expectation from customers, employers for better services and a lot of opportunity for us. To your specific question, the services that we are winning these contracts for are new in the market.
The new services, for example, that Faethm provide, the new services that Credly provide, these are innovations in the market today, and they take us into a much more effective, high-value future state in terms of outcomes for customers and returns for Pearson. What the opportunity for us now, having landed so many of these contracts, is to expand the revenue opportunity that we have there by integrating our products and services together and filling out some of the gaps that I mentioned when I spoke. Thanks.
Sally?
I'm not gonna stand up 'cause I've got a sneaky suspicion I'm gonna leave my mic if I do. In terms of the application of our capital allocation policy, I've laid out, and I have incorporated an assumption around what happens around the international courseware where local publishing business is. The board will always apply our capital allocation policy. Our priority is in investing the business and driving future growth. At any point in time, if we see the opportunity to return, make returns to shareholders, we absolutely will, and we've demonstrated that we have now.
Can we stay the OPM, please?
Oh, yeah. Sorry, Tom.
Yeah. I mean, I think, look, the simple answer is Rome wasn't built in a day. You know, we've started off with a major reset of that business. We're bringing in a new leadership team. We're putting the foundations in place from a marketing enrollment perspective in terms of getting the funnel right. Then we need to get on with the new business development pipeline. As you appreciate, you know, when you're ramping up these new courses, they take time to ramp up. There's an investment cost required with doing that. We want to be really clear we've got the right partners where we can scale with. That doesn't mean you're gonna take one university online with three programs.
We're talking about, you know, taking a university online with the right number of programs, so you can grow scale behind the brand, leverage the brand, the university's brand, to grow in that space, 'cause we recognize it's a competitive market, so we're being very choice about where and how we grow. We're not starting off by saying, well, you know, on day one, 14%, there we go. Gradual, thoughtful, step-up approach to growth.
Thank you.
Next question from Susie, from Tom, just at the back.
Yeah. Thank you. It's Tom here from Citi. Yeah, three questions. Let's go for it. The first one, on the guidance, it's GBP 417, which I think you've taken from consensus. But looking at consensus, it also includes just shy of GBP 30 million for Workforce Skills. So, it. I mean, by definition, there's an extra sort of GBP 30 million of investment. I'm just coming in somewhere. I'm interested whether that's fresh money being spent on developing Workforce Skills, or whether that's a sort of run rate of losses for Faethm and Credly that will just be absorbed by the Workforce Skills division. That's, I suppose, the first question, and maybe the small addendum there is, you know, where consensus too low for 2022 as well?
The second question was on assessments and qualifications, just around account wins and losses. Obviously, the DVSA contract is coming out. I was just wondering whether you have line of sight on any big contracts that are coming this year, just so we can just keep an eye on them. A final one for Tom on OPM. Do you feel like you're missing out not having any big destination consumer site like edX or Coursera? Or, you know, is that something that Pearson+ is gonna build, sort of fill in over time? Thank you.
Shall I take the first one?
Yeah. Yeah.
The GBP 30 million for Workforce Skills increased investment, which I indicated, that's a kind of mixture of both, Tom. There are losses in Faethm and Credly, and we're also putting further, I guess, organic investment into Workforce as well. That broadly comes from capital reallocation across the other divisions. As you know, I'm very cost-conscious, so, you know, there's some places where we're making savings that enable us to invest in that future growth. I think that probably answers the question. Anything you'd want to add? No.
Bob, do you wanna talk about?
Yeah, the DVSA contract was disaggregated. We didn't lose it all. In fact, we maintained about a third of what it was, but two-thirds was a hit. When you're gonna grow in mid-single digits and you lost a big contract like that means there are obviously some new contracts in the works. One of them has already been signed, but they've chosen not to go public with it yet because they don't wanna stir up their, make sure they have a nice exit from the current vendor. They think announcing it will create havoc. That will be announced soon. We expect several new fairly significant contracts to be signed in 2022, which I really can't talk about because they're in the stages of finalization.
The pipeline for the VUE business is as strong as it's been in many years.
As you recall, have that stability of the number of contracts. A win and a loss anywhere over the overall breadth of scale of those contracts is it mitigates some of that. Tom?
Yeah. Look, I think from an OPM perspective, when we speak to university partners, they care about one thing, having high quality pipelines of students that we can bring in for them. You know, obviously, 2U and others can get access to that from their large base of MOOC-based clients. We feel good about what we're doing in terms of our marketing and enrollment funnel. We see there's a lot of opportunity there to optimize that, to drive efficiency through it, to get better conversion, to get the media mix right, to improve the work we're doing with our enrollment teams. Frankly, we're happy with what we've got, and we're gonna make sure we deliver with that for our partners.
If we do that, we'll continue to build a reputation for consistent delivery for those partners, and we'll continue to grow relationships and build an excellent reputation in the marketplace. That's the plan, and we're sticking to it.
Susie, going over to Adam.
Hi, good morning, everyone. It's Adam Berlin from UBS. I've also got three questions, two on higher ed and one on Workforce Skills, if we can. On higher ed, does it make sense to target a stable margin this year? You've said you're gonna have declining revenue. There's obviously salary inflation in the U.S. Andy's talked about this huge opportunity in Pearson+ and to invest in that platform. You know, how are you gonna do it? Is kind of the question. The second thing following up on that is you talked about the importance of MyLab and Mastering, which is actually where most of the revenue in U.S. higher ed is today, and how important that is as an acquisition funnel for Pearson+ in your strategy.
How are you gonna stop the decline in Mastering and MyLab units? What's the plan? You don't talk about it. You always talk about Inclusive Access and Pearson +, which will focus on textbooks. But, you know, what are you doing to turn around that big problem you have in that business? And then the question I want to ask on Workforce Skills is, could you just explain how large the enterprise sales team is today? How big does it need to get? How hard is that gonna be to recruit those people in the current labor market, and what's that like? Because, you know, that's a real challenge for lots of tech startups.
That'd be really helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Do you wanna start with the higher ed margins, and then move on over-
Yeah. I'll hand over to Tim.
Tim, yes.
Yes, it does make sense to target those margins. We've got two things happening. We've got the revenue piece, but we've also got ongoing cost savings within the business, which we've seen in 2021, so it's a continuation of the things that we're doing there. As you move from print to digital, there's costs that you can naturally take out of the business, and Tim and his team are very expert at doing that. So, I'm really confident about higher ed margin this year.
I'll just add before Tim leads up. It's about, you know, we take a holistic view about how we spend and how we allocate our expenses across the company, and how we utilize any cost savings that we're bringing in so that we're prioritizing and triaging. It's really important that we put our money to work so that we are gonna be driving growth. We are focused relentlessly on growth and delivering that. We don't no longer look at just a segment by segment by segment. We are really thinking around, okay, this is in totality how much we spend on these different aspects on a day-to-day basis, and these are the areas, you've heard some areas in terms of Pearson+, Workforce, Geo's world. The real answer, all of these businesses are constantly innovating, constantly investing.
what we do where we have opportunities to optimize our operations is then how, where is the best way to allocate our funds? I think it's just a very important you understand that's how we see that, but Tim-
I didn't pick up on the Pearson+ front, so sorry, Adam.
Yes.
I really will let you have a go, Tim.
Yes. Go on, Tim.
We've got investment in Pearson+ in 2021. We've got it in 2022.
Yeah.
It's just a kind of not an incremental piece 'cause we already had it in 2021.
We built that in. That was kind of more eloquently said as what I was trying to say.
Yeah. Thanks, boss.
Yeah. Go on, Tim.
Yeah. No, appreciate the question. I mentioned three key drivers for the higher education business. You know, headline level, which is enhancing those core products, which I'll come back to, accelerating secondary recapture and scaling Pearson + in a way that can expand our addressable market. All three of those are not aspirational, they're operational, and they're well underway. Now double-clicking on the enhancement of the core products, MyLab and Mastering, to you know, put a finer point on what we've done and what we're doing. The migration to cloud, as I mentioned, will essentially be complete this year. That's a very significant undertaking that will support reliability and stability. You can call those table stakes, but it's a heavy lift from an execution standpoint, so almost done this year. Point two about convergence.
Again, that is bringing the MyLab & Mastering platforms to a single application, right? Common UX framework, common services that will in turn bring a consistent user experience and much faster innovation cycle. Our ability to respond and remain or gain competitive advantage is supported by that. That convergence will be completed over this period. It is underway. You have to step-by-step through one application at a time. You deconstruct the services. It's been underway, and it will be complete within this period. Point three is we have a roadmap of features that are aimed at improving the learner experience. Improved adaptivity, improved interactivity, a more integrated learning experience.
All these things were very, you know, close contact with both faculty instructors and on the student side of things that will, again, both maintain our competitive position or improve it. Those are the reasons we believe that core product suite will remain competitive. The other issue we've seen in the last couple years is they were designed. They're very anchored on lower level undergraduate courses. When we introduced them 20 years ago, they're faculty productivity tools for one, which means people use them in large scale courses because they bring faculty productivity. Those have been under significant pressure over the last two years, where undergraduate enrollments are down 6%, right, in the U.S.
I think a lot of the volume pressure we're seeing is a reflection of the enrollment environment, which we don't control for, but we don't expect to be as severe on the outlook. While we can't predict it, you know, we might see some improvements in those. That's the reason why we believe that set of core franchises will remain an essential part and a reliable part of the portfolio in the revenues and profits.
To be clear, we see no erosion in our share. To just your earlier points. Mike?
Great question. Three parts of the answer to this. I mentioned we've integrated our smaller, faster growing assets into the Workforce Solutions business. That's three of the existing Pearson business units plus the two acquisitions. That's a new single integrated go-to-market structure that we're creating out of that. Today, less than 100 in terms of people working in the sales and marketing function. But we're structuring that and executing that in a different way than Pearson has in the past. The second thing I would say just is partly about the acquisitions. Obviously with Faethm and Credly, we've brought in some very talented people on the go-to-market side as well as on product development, and data, particularly in the B2B SaaS business model space, which is gonna be a key driver of revenue for us.
Great unit economics, highly scalable, big part of what we're going to do. The third part, and this is really interesting, is really the appeal and the offer and the story that Pearson has. I think there's a lot. I am recruiting at the moment. If any of you are interested, see me afterwards. You know, there's a lot of people from, you know, that B2B SaaS world, very attracted to the purpose that Andy's bringing and that we've talked about today, but also the opportunity they see as sales professionals in our growth story. It's a hugely competitive labor market out there for sure, but we've got a great offer that we're finding is very appealing to people.
Over to Jade Stedman.
Thank you. It's Jade from Berenberg. Maybe just two questions on Pearson+. In terms of the 2.75 million users, that's a December figure, if I'm not mistaken. Now that we're halfway through a new college semester, how has it trended since? And any indication on the number of paid users within there? Maybe one on Credly as well. Could you just maybe talk about, maybe compared to LinkedIn, you can sort of put qualifications on LinkedIn, accredited and everything. Just the difference in use cases between Credly and LinkedIn.
I'll tell you the first question on Pearson+. As I mentioned in my remarks, we're gonna focus on releasing both registered user numbers and subscriber numbers twice a year. We're gonna do it at the end of the calendar year, i.e., we're reporting at year-end and at interims. The next update you should expect is at our interim presentation. I will say that there has been healthy growth, shall we say, since that number at the end of last year, but we will be getting into more details around both of those numbers and get into that regular cadence, so that we're mirroring both the calendar and fiscal year, but also then the academic year, so that we're giving you accurate numbers at the end of each of those periods. Mike, do you want to talk Credly?
Sure. I mean, there are great synergies actually between Credly and LinkedIn. Many people will communicate their Credly credentials on LinkedIn, so that's one of the application areas. I think the difference to think about here is two. You know, LinkedIn obviously is fundamentally a social platform for professional work. Think of Credly as the data layer for skills. That's the first difference. The really key thing is around verified skills. You know, LinkedIn's got some great technology, working very hard to bring an element of verification to what we in the room say about ourselves on LinkedIn. You can query how accurate some of that data is. I'm sure we're all completely honest about what we've said we've done in the past on LinkedIn. Credly is a verified skills database.
If you have a Credly badge, you can take that to the bank. You know, it tells you as an individual, it helps you obviously communicate what you can do. But as a consumer of those skills, as an employer, for your employees within your enterprise, and you're thinking about how to make use of them, or if you're seeking to recruit new employees, Credly gives you an accurate verified picture on skills. That's the big differentiator.
I'd like to add one quick statement that I was on the Credly board. As you know, Pearson owned 20% of that. One key differentiator is the Credly badge tells you what you can do, not just what you know. There's a lot of difference between what you know and what you can do, and the Credly badge verifies that you can actually do something, not just know about it.
Good point. Jo.
We've a couple from online.
Sure.
Sally, for you, Matt from Credit Suisse. How much M&A revenue is in the 2020 to 2025 guidance? And are you looking for stable margins in 2023 as well as 2022?
We've got both. You know, I think it's probably the answer to the question I had earlier. In 2022, I've given you the breakdown both for the organic, the existing business in 2021, then I've given you the growth rate for both Faethm and Credly. And then for 2022 to 2025 onwards, that's included. It'll be within the base. For 2023 margins, the margin for 2021, 11.3%, could that mean that the margin for 2022 rounds up to 12% rather than 11%? Absolutely. You know, broadly stable.
Thank you. Another one from Sammy from Exane. Mike, I think I'm gonna give you the first one. What is the annual revenue base for Faethm and Credly from which you are guiding for 4% revenue growth in 2022?
Today, about 25 million.
Perfect. Tom, one for you. How much of the COVID cohort are you planning on retaining in full 2022? I think that's Virtual Schools.
It is indeed. I mean, I think, you know, the first thing to say is we have grown 33,000 students over the last couple of years as a result of the COVID cohort, and interest in Virtual Schools is increasing. Two things are different this year. One is that, in the 2021-2022 school year, we had a lower proportion of new students, so we have a lower retention rate for new students versus returning students. That mix has changed positively. Then secondly, in our new students in 2021, about a third of them said their principal reason for coming was COVID. And in 2020, that was around 50%.
You've got a proportionately better mix in terms of new versus returning, and you've got a proportionately fewer number of students in terms of, COVID being the principal reason they were coming in terms of new students in the first place. You put all of that together, and then, you know, you can back out the difference between our guidance for 2022 and then 2023 to 2025 in terms of the difference that that's having on our year-over-year growth rates.
A question from Nick.
Hi, this is
Am I working?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is Nick from Artemis. Good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for a really interesting presentation and helping us build out understanding of where you're taking this business. When we look at it, we can see the opportunity to go from being, let's say, a higher education publisher to a global learning media company. You talked about the jigsaw pieces and then the picture that you're creating. Well, to get there is gonna take an ability to create compelling content that people really want and value. That's an element of magic, which is we've seen in businesses like Disney, that is a bit harder for investors.
Can you give us some explanation of where your confidence comes from, that you have that content, heritage, and culture and capability within Pearson that you believe you can execute and create that compelling product and service for your users around the world?
Great question, Nick, and thank you for raising it. You know, I think one of my first presentations, I said, you know, intellectual property, IP, is really at the heart of this company. As you would imagine, given where I've been in the past, you know, I'm a strong believer in the power both of intellectual property and of brand. Whether that's in the past, you know, our 3,500 authors in the higher education business who created intellectual property in the form of a textbook, through to what we're doing in English language learning. The intellectual property that we create across all of our businesses, the 5,500 teachers that we have in our Virtual Schools business, and the bespoke curriculum that is our intellectual property that we create in Connections Academy.
Across this entire range of businesses, intellectual property and the people who create it, and the people who go search for that talent to create the next generation or next iteration of intellectual property, is fundamental to our success across the business. Whether that is through an acquisition such as Clutch Prep that Tim mentioned today, all the way through to constantly we have teams in each of the divisions whose sole job is essentially talent spotting at finding talent, attracting talent, nurturing talent, and then delivering and creating compelling, quality, trusted product that learners want. That's how we have won in the past, and that's how we will win in the future. It's that marrying of intellectual property with the technology and the developments in technology that are enabling us to create direct relationships with consumers. I hope that helps.
Can I just add something to that?
Yeah.
It's about the magic of the content, as you say, and as Andy's explained. It's also about the magic of the algorithm, you know, in these global media companies. You know, we are connecting Pearson through the services that we're developing, the acquisitions that we are making. You know, Faethm incredibly as Andy mentioned, the capability they have as diagnosers, as recommenders of pathways of content, you know, has applicability across the whole of the portfolio. What that will allow us to do, as well as bringing compelling new content to market to meet the specific needs of our learners in a Pearson+ environment, for example, wherever they are in life.
It also allows us to gain much greater value and scale for our existing content, because we have got great content, you know, locked up is maybe too strong a word, but, you know, it's in use cases which we can dramatically expand through that connectivity as well.
Just to build on Mike's point, we've got, you know, a new curriculum that we're building in the virtual school space that is aligned to the World Economic Forum skills ontology. Guess what? Faethm is very closely aligned to that in terms of its own understanding of Workforce Skills, so that can all be aligned. We're building that content in a different way, so it's modular. It is not, you know, they think about it as a textbook, think about it as a database of content which gives you very clear learner feedback, so you can understand performance from students in terms of how they're doing. You can then take Certiport, which is a, you know, an assessment qualification. You can then start thinking about how you provide a broader service to virtual school students because of the range of the things we can offer.
You can think about the relationship with Virtual Schools and workforce, for example, as we're thinking about making those linkages up and down in terms of the lifelong learning value. I think there's great content, there's cross synergies, and then there's the aging stages of the organization and how we bring that together.
The amount of data that we are receiving and, you know, we've referenced a bit around the importance we see and the opportunity we see with data across the company. How we manage, how we utilize, and how we use data not only to inform us on how to improve our products and our content and our IP, but also to help the learners. You know, one of the things that struck me recently was the use of our data as a predictive tool. You know, is if someone comes into the beginning of their high school or their college life or university life, and we're able to follow their what they are studying over a three or four-year period. We can help students answer that main question they have.
What the hell can I do with this degree? What jobs are available? If we know, and through credit, we can also then say, "By the way, you know, if you took this credential or this badging, that's gonna help differentiate you in the market." We can, you know, if, for example, we thought you were good for a marketing role, and there are enterprises who are looking for 100 marketing graduates, we have data on tens of thousands of potential recruits into that marketing world. This is another way to think about Pearson VUE. You know, I went into the High Holborn Pearson VUE test center a few weeks ago, and there was a bunch of candidates taking a nursing exam.
Now, if you think about it, we know there's a bunch of individuals who want to become nurses before anyone else. How we leverage those insights across the company and across a consistent data layer and a common identity, I think is something that's very, very interesting.
Question from Simon, from BNP. Andy, to you. Does the business have an indication of what good best case scenario looks like for growth and margins?
Does the-
Businesses have an indication of what good, best case scenario would look like for revenue and margins.
Well, aside from the financial metrics that we have in place and the non-financial KPIs, we have a relentless focus and rigor and transparency around how we're operating. We share, you know, when things are going well. We understand what are the levers that are generating that success. If there are any challenges, we know then how to address them and move with agility. You know, then you layer that into it. It's almost like an intuitive management. You know, that's why we meet together for two hours every Monday morning, because you can get a certain amount of information from the numbers. A lot of those numbers are generated.
You know, we have the forecasting, you know, accurate forecasting, that feeds into various of the models within Sally's team. Very, very important. There is something about understanding at an early stage what's working or what not working, and what we need to change and what we need to improve. I'm not sure whether I'm getting at the essence of the question per se or if anyone wants to add, but that's how I interpret it. It's, you know, how we're managing the company as a whole above and beyond the pure numbers.
I'll just add to that, maybe a bit more directly. You know, we've laid out what we feel is a base case of what we expect from ourselves, here. We would hope to improve on that, and Pearson+ should give us the vehicle to do so.
Yeah.
I'll hand back to Andy, I think.
Okay. Well, thank you very much. If you're watching online, appreciate taking the time out of your day, and particularly for those of you who've made it into 80 Strand this morning. I greatly appreciate your interest in our company. We are all here. There will be product demonstrations for both Faethm. There are some folks here from Credly as well as the Pearson+ team. So, you can. We're doing it in groups and in individuals. So, for those of you who are interested in any of those elements, any other questions that you have that you haven't had the opportunity to raise now, we are all here and at your service. So, thank you very, very much. I believe there may be refreshments for those of you here outside. Thank you.
Thank you.