Pearson Developing Netflix of Education under Hitchcock’s Leadership

Albert Hitchcock became a part of 174 year old Pearson as Chief Information Officer in early 2014. The company was already struggling with a major transformation. One of the biggest and reputed companies was about to shift its focus from publishing to education. The announcement of the same would be made in the next year. Hitchcock was able to smoothen out this change with the help of three-phased transformation that includes radical simplification of the process, developing a platform strategy and then, creating an execution strategy. The first step involves consolidation of systems which means moving from data centres to the cloud system and a few people and cultural changes.

The company will now move towards the single platform under the guidance of Hitchcock's leadership. This would produce a system quite similar to Netflix for educations. The new structure would be highly scalable, will have high-quality and would be quite global in nature. With the help of this system, it would be easier to deliver all kinds of experiences to millions of learners in most parts of the world.

During the journey, role of Hitchcock aggrandized and he became Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer from CIO. Now he would be working on IT and digital transformation along with product development, procurement, customer service and supply chain.

By: Neha Maheshwari

Content: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2018/08/20/how-174-year-old-pearson-is-developing-the-netflix-of-education/amp/