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"There’s a new level of energy as a result of the crisis. Complacency has been replaced with a sense of urgency.”
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Rajeev Samant, Sula Wines |
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"The last slowdown was good for Naukri. This one just might be good for our new ventures like 99acres.”
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Hitesh Oberoi, Info Edge |
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"In the present ‘discount culture’, we are choosing to break out of the clutter by being more aggressive.”
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Ashish Kapur, Yo! China |
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“Loyalties between the management and the employees get built in times like these.”
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M P Rao, Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd |
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“We find that people are more amenable to change in a downturn.”
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Ajay Singh, SpiceJet |
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By Pooja Kothari
Rajeev Samant, CEO of Sula Wines, is usually a happy man on December 31. Having introduced India to premium wines, he likes watching people ring in the new year with a glass of his Dindori Reserve Shiraz raised in toast.
But 2008 wasn’t a usual year. After growing 45% year-on-year for four consecutive years, sales at Sula were down by 10% between October and December 2008.
Rajeev knew the last few months of 2008 had been difficult for the hospitality sector. Even then, he couldn’t stop gasping at the breathtaking speed at which the economic scenario changed between the first six months of FY 2008-09 and its third quarter. He isn’t the only C-suite occupant wondering how his business would fare this year.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the founder and CEO of Info Edge, best known for its job portal, Naukri.com, is equally apprehensive about the current fiscal. After growing at 60% in 2007-08, Naukri grew at a comparatively slower 28% in the first six months of 2008-09. By the end of the year, growth had fallen to 8%.
It’s the same story with a lot of businesses. While most companies were coping with the shock of the US officially going into recession, India struggled with terror attacks in Mumbai, which badly hit the hospitality and tourism sectors, and then the Satyam accounting fraud that has raised doubts about India Inc. News reports suggest that business confidence is at a six-year low.
But how long before things get back to normal?
“Earlier, I thought that 2010 will be a normal year for business. But now, I feel 2011 is when things might bounce back,” says M. Prabhakar Rao, the managing director of Nuziveedu Seeds, this from a man whose Rs 500-crore business is hardly cyclical in nature.
There’s no doubting that the medium-to-long term success story is intact. The problem is now. What do you do till things bounce back? How do you ensure that you survive the next few quarters with minimum collateral damage?
Keeping these questions in mind, Inc. India spoke to five CEOs – some facing their first downturn ever – to figure out what they’re doing to steer their businesses in a tough year like this.
Here’s hoping that this will also help you navigate through the twists and turns of growth.
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