Paritosh Ladhani, Joint Managing Director of Sincere Developers shares about market potential, current challenges and its future growth plans.
1. The Ladhani family has been Coca-Cola India's largest bottling partner for over two decades. How has this long-standing partnership shaped your business philosophy and approach to growth?
The best part of working with a company like Coca Cola is that they are an evolved company. They would not only focus on growing the market to its potential, but also work on how to build sustainability around the business. The fact that we have to give back to the community may be a concept now for many companies, but the ethos and values of the Coca Cola Company was always to build a strong culture of growing together. We treat our family as professionals and our professionals as family, and this works both ways
I have applied the same approach to all my other business. We have to grow together and every employee is part of the growth. Our Bonus and incentive plans are based on cumulative growth adhering to our values.
Our Values in the Coca Cola business are Integrity, respect, ownership, drive, partnership and being future ready. I have imbibed the same values and approach to my other verticals
2. What inspired you to diversify from the beverage industry into hospitality with the Taj Hotel & Convention Centre in Agra? How did you identify this opportunity?
I always saw an opportunity of a Good 4 star hotel in Agra, and I started looking for a piece of land for the same. As the saying goes, the harder you work the luckier you get. I got an extremely wonderful piece of land right next to the Taj Mahal.
We started with the concept of a 4 star with Country Inn and suites brand of Carlson group, but by the time we finished the hotel, and thanks to my father’s impeccable taste in creating businesses, we created a 5 star so we converted it to a Radisson Blu. In 2019, we switched to Taj brand, which is the no.1 hospitality brand of the world.
In 2024, we have started renovating it again to create the most iconic luxury hotel in Agra after Oberoi Amar Vilas.
With hospitality industry, you have to keep on investing to surprise your guests, to make them want to come to your property more and more, not only for weekend getaways , but also for the weddings and conversations. The Guests actually work as the best brand ambassador in the hospitality industry, and we have to ensure that their experience is the best
3. The beverage and hospitality industries often have different operational challenges. How have you adapted your leadership style to effectively manage both sectors?
I would say that they are slightly different in their operations and business model. The way to grow every business is same – you have to focus day in and day out without interfering with your professionals, have very strong update schedule, ensure no tolerance policy to quality control, getting right customer feedback and innovating the business (even in a small way) to create excitement for the customers.
Hospitality is all about being patient and we work in a controlled environment. A guest entering a 5 star hotel is extremely sensitive and he experiences multiple products, for him to have the best stay, you have to get 100% in every experience he has. So it’s a very challenging industry and you have to be on your toes all the while during the job
With Beverages also, you have to be on your toes for every vertical. At SLMG, we sold 2.1 billion litres of beverage last year in our territory, and every single bottle was quality tested, produced in the right environment, shipped to the distributors on time and they further ensured the timely delivery. The retailer has the duty to serve our drinks at the most ambient temperature to the consumers. This entire cycle completes a perfect consumer experience.
So, the objective in both the trades is the same, the challenges may be different but what is common is Adhering to SOPs, Having a focussed committed team and quality control check at every point.
4. How do you cultivate innovation within your organizations? Can you share an example of how an innovative idea transformed one of your businesses?
In my hotel business, we have innovated a lot in terms of creating our restaurant brand called Dawat E Nawab, Infini. The idea of creating an infinity pool overlooking the Taj was by my father, and it has worked really well. I keep on doing innovations vis-à-vis our distribution strategies, marketing execution in our beverage business
I would say that we implement small ideas in every vertical , instead of coming up with a large idea, which helps us in transforming our business.
5. Can you describe a failure or setback in your career that taught you a valuable lesson? How did you bounce back? For entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses, what advice would you give about managing growth responsibly?
I have not had one, but 3-4 major failures in my business. I will talk about the biggest of all. I started a snack food business when I was just 23, I finished my MBA at a very early age of 21 and after getting two years of business experience with my father, I wanted to create my own brand. At those times, fintech was not the ‘in’ thing and the good old ‘brick and mortar’ factories were creating brands.
The business did well for first six months and it miserably failed resulting in huge losses for me. It dented my confidence for quite some time. But thanks to my wife Alka Ladhani and her support & belief in me, I got out of that situation. The Failure made me humbler and more analytical in my approach and I had a lot of successes in my other ventures
Every entrepreneur should be unsuccessful, and I may sound cliched but failure is your first step to being successful. You have to grind it out day in and day out irrespective of the timing of your results. You will be eventually successful, and that’s a given. But for some, that event of success takes ages to come, and for some, it comes early. That’s what destiny is. As the great Ray Kroc said “ It is true that I was an overnight success , but that night was 30 years long”
6. As you look to the future, what excites you most about the potential for innovation and growth in your industries?
For my beverage industry, I see immense potential as our per capita are only about 30 servings. It will poise to grow at healthy double digits, but innovation in package sizing, distribution alignment, capturing trade through quick commerce would be the key.
For Hospitality, the dynamics are changing. Guests are not looking at run of the mill 5-star hotel. In this Insta driven world, they want to experience luxury hotels, more international cuisines and larger than life experience. As hospitality is a high capital intensive industry, it takes time to grow
