He is known to have quit his job by accidentally texting his boss while on a backpacking trip to South Africa. He identifies himself as a true Bombay boy and believes in simplistic world views. He is none other than Ashish Hemrajani, the founder and chief executive officer of BookMyShow. More about him in the paragraphs below.
Ashish Hemrajani during the pandemic and more
It has not always been smooth sailing for Ashish Hemrajani. He has survived the dot-com bubble burst of 1999, and he believes in building “forever companies”. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Bigtree Entertainment Private Ltd, which operates and owns BookMyShow.
While talking to Shradha Sharma, the founder, and chief executive officer of YourStory, he said that due to the pandemic, the so-called “operator” in him surfaced after 20 long years, thereby urging him to take charge of the many existing business metrics. It also compelled him to make a few tough decisions on the way.
The company was compelled to enforce pay cuts and resizing teams so that they could tide over the tough times of the pandemic. It is a well-known fact that the pandemic hit hard the entertainment industry apart from many live events that usually take place around the year.
This further caused BookMyShow to re-evaluate the business and incorporate various types of revenue streams into the system. The company also introduced the pay-per video-on-demand or TVOD in February 2021. This allows the consumers to only pay for movies they prefer to watch so that they do not have to stir out of the house to visit the cinema theatres.
Now that the global markets are reopening, this kind of service will prove to be of immense importance. It will be beneficial for the consumers, but it will also add value to the core business of BookMyShow event ticketing and movie.
His strategies to re-build the business
By seeing the trends that are occurring globally, he anticipates that there will be pent-up demand for his business during the period 2022 through 2024. With the TVOD kind of services taking off again, he is also looking ahead to monetise the data of the premium client base.
Following pay cuts and resizing of the company, a team of four HR officials was set up. This cell was responsible for helping employees that were a part of the team resizing to look for alternate places of employment. During the tough times of Covid-19, the company helped many people and offered COVID care through its BookMySmile.
As far as getting advice from an established chief executive officer is concerned, he suggests that every entrepreneur must watch Ted Lasso, the Apple TV+ series, for the valuable lessons that it offers for people on the start-up journey. He was the one to say that this pandemic will identify and bring out the best in those companies that will survive the crisis and make them stronger in the process. He believes that what does not kill you simply makes you stronger.
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