TIL Desk/Business/Mumbai/ Within about 100 days of joining as the managing director and chief executive officer of Indian Hotels, Puneet Chhatwal got an ‘almost unanimous’ decision in a meeting to go back to a multi-brand approach. The development comes within a year of another strategic decision taken by the company’s then MD and CEO Rakesh Sarna to have all its hotels under a single brand — Taj Hotels Palaces Resorts Safaris.
Sarna’s decision overturned the multi-brand strategy unfolded in 2008 — under the then MD and CEO Raymond Bickson — that could not last even a decade.”We evolved this strategy in a meeting we had. It was an almost unanimous decision, as 30 out of 35 people immediately agreed that it was not the right way forward,” says Chhatwal, referring to the company’s single-brand strategy.
The company, he adds. had seen the most expansion in the upscale, mid-scale and economy segments and expected the trend to continue. “I do not know exactly what happened before. But one thing is clear. The multi-brand strategy launched 13, 14 years ago was the right way forward,” Chhatwal tells Abhineet Kumar, announcing that the multi-brand strategy could drive profitability to a 25 per cent profit margin in the next five years from 17 per cent now.
