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Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Hitesh Oberoi: Treading carefully

This duo lords over nine businesses with 66 offices in 42 cities. They are facing a tough time in almost all their businesses, be it the job portal Naukri, or the real estate site 99acres.com, or Quadrangle, their executive search firm. The exception, perhaps, will be Jeevansathi.com. But they have survived the dotcom-bubble burst and the following slowdown 2001. "The last slowdown was good for Naukri. This one might be good for our new ventures," says Oberoi.

Here’s what these IIM alums have to say:

Sanjeev Bikhchandani
and
Hitesh Oberoi,
Info Edge (India) Ltd

Conserve cash: We may have Rs 330 crore sitting in the bank, but we’re going to be very careful about how we spend it. We’re scrutinising every expense we make, be it staff welfare or travel. We’re negotiating better rates with our suppliers. For instance, we have negotiated better rates in ad buying. We had bought 1.25 acres of land to build our office, but we’ve postponed the construction for now. In the last three months, we have had 5-6 meetings on sales, collections and expense monitoring. We’re going to be regularly checking where we stand, because no one knows what’s going to happen. We’re happy we raised the cash and didn’t utilise it earlier.

Look for smart acquisition opportunities: This is the time for acquiring good assets, which will now be available at more realistic prices. So we’re on the lookout for assets in India that are related to the internet and in a B2C business similar to our existing ones.

Defend margins: We’re determined to ensure growth, even if it is at a much slower rate. We feel things will stay tough for two more quarters, so we have to defend our margins in the meanwhile. People and marketing are our two biggest costs. Luckily for us, competition spends are down substantially, so we can afford to spend the same on marketing efforts, instead of increasing our budget. While we’re not into laying off people, we’re questioning every replacement, moderating increments and keeping a close eye on headcount.

Gain market share: We’re planning to continue our efforts to increase our market share. We are working on our analytics and algorithms, so that the site works smarter for the user. We want to extract more efficiency by implementing ERP and CRM. It should also work in our favour that our competitor, which was outspending us so far, has cut down on ad spends more than we have. "The last slowdown was good for Naukri. This one just might be good for our new ventures like 99acres."

Innovate: We’re getting into new verticals and new businesses, such as FirstNaukri, which is targeted at people looking for their first job. We’re thinking of similar products that allow us to sell to the customer using the existing sales team.

CLICK ON PICTURES TO KNOW WHAT EACH ONE HAS TO SAY
Rajeev Samant Sula Wines Sanjeev Bikhchandani Info Edge (India) Ltd Ashish Kapur
Yo! China
M. Prabhakar Rao
Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd
Ajay Singh SpiceJet
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