Unlearning To Relearn

Arif Patel, VP-sales, marketing, distribution and loyalty-India of AccorHotels welcomes business disruption. He tells Vinita Bhatia that it gives him a chance to unlearn conventional strategies and learn new ways to handle challenges thrown up by the dynamic new order

It's been 14 months since Arif Patel moved from Starwood Hotels and Resorts – where he was regional director-sales and marketing for South Asia – to helm the mantle of VP-sales, marketing, distribution and loyalty-India at AccorHotels. During this period, he revelas how he has come up with stratagem after stratagem to help his team adapt to an environment where the traditional business boundaries are beginning to blurr.

What initiatives have you undertaken since you have took charge almost a year and half ago?

While everybody is downsizing their sales staff, we are oversizing. India is a growing country and we want to put our sales resources where our customers are. So, we launched this initiative in nine cities with 42 people, where we want to provide a one-stop solution for all market segments from entertainment to weddings to sports and other traditional businesses. These are all long-term strategies for a scalable sales organization. We also decided that if we can’t open operations in more cities, we will increase our density in existing cities where our business is originating from like Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad or Chennai.

We also realised is that the KPI of salesperson of Sofitel Mumbai BKC is usually selling their hotel. If there is business for Goa, they will refer it and leave it there. They might not put in the effort to convert it. So, we launched a cross-selling incentive program wherein any associate who generates business outside of their KPI for a sister hotel – be it a salesperson, general manager, F&B personnel – they will earn a certain percentage as an incentive.

That is an effective to put more salespeople on the streets indirectly.