Learning on the Job All the Time

Bikramjit Ray May 03, 2016

LOOK BEYOND the easy-going smile, her favourite Christian Louboutins and you can see a strength of character which has allowed Sonica Malhotra Kandhari, Director of the MBD Group, to expand her family business and consolidate the MBD name in hospitality in under a decade.

“I wanted to be a serious hotelier. I was firm in my demand to get co-branding for my hotel. I was also very particular about the fact that I would be managing my hotel, otherwise I would be a mere investor in the field,” Malhotra told me. The aim was always to learn the trade and make sure that the MBD name would, over time, be recognised as a hotel brand as well. “I want it to become a brand on its own over a 20-year horizon, something which I think worked very well for us,” she added.

“Carlson Rezidor were open to my two co-branding and management idea, which is why we went with the Radisson brand,” she added

With the complete backing of her father, Malhotra began to get involved in the business, doing all the legal work, recruiting the team and of course running Noida and one of the NCR’s most successful hotels.

“Despite the fact that competition is growing in Noida, we continue to maintain our No 1 Rev Par position by double the margin. In the entire Delhi NCR region, we are No 3,” she says. Malhotra began working for the company when the MBD Radisson Blu in Noida was still in its project stage. “I looked after everything initially, from construction to interiors to legal paperwork,” she said. It was her father, Ashok Kumar Malhotra, who decided to look for and buy land in Noida, but from there on, it was a joint effort when it came to take the project forward and find a brand.

“The moment I finished my MBA with IMI, I immediately started working with the company (MBD) and have continued to do so, except for a short of a sabbatical, when I completed a Program in Leadership Development at Harvard University, Boston,” says a very focussed Malhotra.

With two hotels open in Noida as well as Ludhiana and another one coming up in Bengaluru, Malhotra feels that her core management team is one of her chief strengths and that team is a result of the decision she took about managing her own properties. “If I were just a management company, I would not be able to get good talent, because they (employees) would feel it was just a single owner driven hotel. People want to see their careers move ahead. I think I am able to give them a growth path. The better ones who joined early on, are now working in corporate positions,” she told me. In between her Noida and Ludhiana hotels, the group also built and launched two malls. In fact, both her Ludhiana property as well as her upcoming hotel in Bengaluru are mixed use.

“From a financial perspective, hotels have an IRR which require a huge amount of patience. You need at least 15 years before you can financially break even, in terms of all your investments being recovered,” she explained, feeling that mixed use projects were the way forward.

While in Ludhiana, the Radisson Blu Hotel is attached to the swank MBD Neopolis Mall, the Bengaluru property, coming up just a kilometre from the ITPM in Whitefield is coupled with luxury residences. Malhotra didn’t share who she was tying up with for the Bangalore property.

“In Ludhiana, like in Noida, we entered as the first five star hotel. We have come up with a product which for the next ten years, will be unmatched, in terms of the space and the DNA we have created,” she said adding that the company understood the gap in retail and built what was possibly the best mall in Punjab by far, a very premium product with a retail mix that Ludhiana had not imagined before. For Bangalore, the group is bringing in a level of luxury not seen in Whitefield before, Malhotra added.

As for the future? “The group has land in Greater Noida and I know in the next five years the market will be ready for the product I have in mind. We are also currently looking at acquisition in Goa, but a clear title is hard to find”.

The reason for a successful corporate entity, according to this savvy entrepreneur was in the vision of the business and the way management functions. “No business can take the market for granted. Be it in the education vertical, in hospitality or retail. You have to constantly innovate yourself. The moment I relax and think I’ve made it in life, is when I start to decay. We keep on innovating ourselves,” she said.

“We know we are a ten year old product in Noida, so we stay ahead by constantly innovating. Soft touches are being given to F and B outlets all the time. We launched Prive, a luxury room collection which has done phenomenally well. Based on our response of Prive, we are now renovating existing rooms,” Malhotra told me.

As for the market in which we exist, she felt that it was much better exposed, than a decade ago. “The traveller knows what to expect from a quality hotel. Once we know the traveller is well informed, we know you can’t compare apples to oranges. There is a reason why the Radisson Blu MBD in Noida is charging double the rate of what its immediate competition here,” she said.

Finally, the challenges which the hospitality is facing worldwide is a fall in overall rev pars hitting the bottom-line and of course higher levels of competition, which means it’s not easy to find qualified personnel, after all, no company is single person driven, it’s about the team. To get and retain a good team is the real challenge, she concluded.