Ritesh Agarwal
Following deeper engagements with our patrons and acknowledging their feedback, we simplified deals with the best industry practices split commission structure
If anyone appreciates the exigency of keeping pace with technological changes, it is Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and Group CEO, OYO Hotels & Homes. While the company has always been a tech-focused organisation, in the past two years it transitioned into a tech-first one.
OYO strengthened its focus on technology which included a 60% increase in tech-related investment (people) between 2019 and 2021. Today, it works with over 170K hotels and homeowners globally, while utilising its technology and revenue growth capabilities to ease operations and build successful businesses for them.
“2019 and 2020 was about learning, improvement and resilience. It was about understanding problems-solving for stakeholders and building a future-centric business,” said Agarwal. “We utilised the COVID downtime to improve existing, and introduce new, technologies and products for them.”
LEARNING CONSTANTLY
Early on during the pandemic, OYO’s leadership team came together to reflect and share feedback candidly. This exercise shifted their focus to solving problems with product and technology, instead of just letting it enable them.
“Our hotel partners were facing as big a crisis as us. We used every lever to boost occupancy and give them cash flows,” Agarwal stated.
During the first wave, OYO partnered with over 24 state ministries, over 50 hospitals, 20 embassies and local authorities and provided 100K room nights as part of the OYO Care initiative. Approximately 73,000 repatriated Indians completed their institutional quarantine at its hotels across India.
During the second wave, OYO introduced VaccinAid, a self-declared vaccine visibility on its app to help owners and also tied up with multiple corporations to build quarantine centres in its hotels.
STACKED FOR GROWTH
Agarwal equates growth with being tech and product-first. “Our complete focus for the future is on strengthening our tech stack to increase revenues while making operations hassle-free for our patrons. For our customers, we want to ensure a seamless user experience,” he added.
The Co-OYO and OYO OS apps enable its patrons to manage their bookings and inventory, process payments/ invoicing, adjust room tariff real-time, manage staff at the property, opt into revenue boost programmes, leverage analytics/reporting and access financial statements. Agarwal stated that more than 90% of its patron base uses these products daily to create more efficiency on the operations/yield management side.
“We have now entered a new phase of growth with a supply acquisition technology-driven strategy, which enables small hotels and homeowners to join the OYO family entirely digitally and seamlessly with our self-onboarding tool,” he summed up.
