Of Advisor Bots And Fee Cuts In The Times Of Exec Coaching Wars

(MENAFN- Live Mint) India's executive coaching industry, to which top professionals turn for advice on navigating career challenges and the leadership path, is getting crowded. A wave of new entrants and platforms that make coaches easier to find is forcing them to compete harder for clients, and increasingly, on fees. And now, artificial intelligence (AI) has brought in a real twist-people are growing more comfortable turning to bots for advice.

“India's coaching industry is growing rapidly, bringing intense competition, particularly among new coaches entering the profession. During corporate bulk engagements, pricing often becomes a key factor,” said executive coach Sanjeev Bhatia, who is also the president of the Mumbai charter chapter of the International Coaching Federation (ICF). "While experienced coaches command premium fees based on expertise, credentials and track record, newer coaches may offer lower fees to secure assignments and accumulate coaching hours required for higher-level credentials."

ICF is one of the bodies that offers credentials to coaches. To become a credentialed coach the experts must clock in a fixed number of hours coaching and logging the work, and then take a test. There are different labels of coaches; to go up the hierarchy, more hours need to be registered along with tests.

So, what do the coaches do? They listen, ask questions and challenge assumptions, with the aim of helping executives arrive at their own insights, building self-awareness and better decision-making, rather than offering short-term fixes.

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The demand for coaches comes at a time when companies are finding it difficult to retain senior talent, even in a relatively cold job market. As salary growth moderates, retention strategies increasingly include coaching sessions. And as businesses become more complex, companies today need senior executives who, while focused on results, are also aware of their own blind spots.

Coaching can be both company and individual sponsored and coaches come from across fields. While there are mid-senior executives who have quit or completed their professional tenure and become coaches, now younger executives are picking up coaching as a career option.

The price tag

Such guidance carries a hefty price tag. A CXO coach can charge anywhere from ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh an hour, and sometimes more. Coaches who are new to the field are, however, charging way lower to log more hours, which helps them become more experienced. Over the last five years, many senior industry executives have quit to become coaches; their initial fees can be as low as ₹8,000-10,000 an hour.

“As coaching evolves, new modules and AI advancements are helping coaching scale to be more accessible and impact more people,” said ICF in an email response to Mint. It, however, did not detail the number of coaches in India with its credentials.

Senior coaches such as Alinaa Menon, founder of True North Coaching Academy, say the credibility of the coach becomes crucial in making the choice“With many coaches on the scene: some certified, some credentialed and some 'self proclaimed', coaching fees are dropping rapidly...," she said. "Corporates are beginning to discern this difference quite well. Like any product, when supply is higher than demand, fees get impacted the most and quality specs get compromised.”

According to senior coaches Mint spoke with, some have been forced to recalibrate their fees to adjust to the market changes.

Some coaches run their own training and mapping firms. In the former, aspiring coaches are trained before they take a certification test; in the latter, clients register with their requirements and are matched with a suitable coach.

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Rajat Garg co-founded two such firms: Coach-To-Transformation, a B2C firm that trains and certifies coaches before ICF credentialing and Meeraq, a B2B platform matching coaches with companies and leaders.

Meeraq is about four years old and has 3,000 coaches on its platform, working on a commission basis. Coach-To-Transformation had just 20-25 participants for the year 2016; it now enrolls about 500 executives annually. A three-to-four-month course to become a coach costs ₹1.65 lakh plus GST.

The challenge is multifold.“At one end, the clients are progressively asking for fee cuts, and while AI is yet to threaten the coaching world, we are not far away from the day when a bot will be able to read a client's emotions and facial patterns better than a human coach,” said Garg.

Beyond the price wars, AI is indeed a looming threat, as clients may opt to find solutions through a bot or an AI agent, rather than reach out to a coach. On the other side, some coaches are already using AI for their initial rounds with clients.

Debeshi Chakraborty, an executive coach, said the coaching industry has become more mature and competitive, with a wide range of players-from executive coaching firms and AI-enabled coaching platforms to independent coaches and specialists working with emerging groups such as Gen Z.

"AI is increasingly becoming part of organizational coaching, particularly in longer-term programmes. For instance, in a 10-session engagement, AI can help with initial goal-setting, identifying right coaches aligned to those goals, and check-ins between sessions," said Chakraborty, who is also founder of Dezinecareers, which focuses on leadership development.

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The pandemic was a key factor in opening up coaching as a career option amid employment disruptions and the demand for online services. Coaching can take place one-on-one and in many cases there are group sessions as well.

"Today, the coaching we do is in person and online, with about 200 people attending each programme. Our basic course, 'The Landmark Forum', is three-and-a-half days with an optional four-month follow-up seminar, all included for approximately ₹25,000 per person," said Gopal Rao, a senior programme leader at Landmark Worldwide and head of Indian operations. Landmark Worldwide focuses on personal and professional development.

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