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Founding Years: Collaborating Two best Practices in Early Childhood Education

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Priya Krishnan,   CEO Bangalore based Klay Preschools and Mumbai based The Little Company are no more two different business establishments. In September 2014, they merged to operate under Founding Years, which would act as an umbrella company for both. In today's business climate, mergers and acquisitions are common phenomenon and statistics show that over 30 percent of mergers fail because of simple culture incompatibility. From core philosophies to quality measurements, Klay and The Little Company share parallel ideologies and analogues parameters with a common mission to stem the number of women leaving their job for motherhood. Talking about the acquisitions of The Little Company,Priya Krishnan, CEO of
Klay Preschools says, "Our business is very people oriented; it is all about care, women and children. Therefore, it was important for usto find an organization that has a comparative philosophy for merging and The Little Companyfits perfectly."

Our business is very people oriented; it is all about care, women and children. Therefore, it was important for us to find an organization that has a comparative philosophy for merging and The Little Company fits perfectly


However, the markets Klay and The Little Company choose to address makes them different from each other. While most of Klay centers cater to the retail space, The Little Company has strong presence inside many corporate office spaces at Mumbai, Delhi and Gurgaon.In today's corporate scenarios where law states that publicly traded companies must have a woman on the board, the companies are in
quest of different actions to nurture their women employees to reach board level. Many consider providing daycare facility inside the company premises as an effective solution for capturing and bringing women back to the workplace. With a presence in almost all the major cities in the country, Founding Years today operates 15 corporate centers and 17 retail centers.

"Diversity is a big agenda for most of the corporate clients now. We have already signed with Asian paints, IBM, Adobe and JP Morgan to provide daycare facilities inside their corporate campuses. Our intention is to plug into the diversity and inclusion agendas of these companies," claims Priya. However, the focus of Founding Years is not limited to daycare solutions. According to Priya, the company would be addressing the complete space of early childhood education, which would also cover products for children between the ages of 6 months to 10 years. With likeminded people from Klay and The Little Company, Founding Years has built a strong management on the board. "Soon, we would be expanding our centers in both retail and corporate space with our motto of bringing back women to the workspace and we would keep the level of transparency always high for the parents," concludes Priya.