Staying the course of business is not easy in these times, here's how Skyla is getting through

I would like to begin with our core value ‘Obsession to exceed the expectations of our guests – every time’. Our teams have upheld this motto by going out of their way to serve guests staying with us, despite the health risks. I’m glad that our team shines a ray of hope for those stranded in Hyderabad.

 These are testing times – being caught between a pandemic and declining revenue. While it’s of paramount importance to serve guests, relentless efforts are being made to look after our team’s safety, avoiding pay-cuts, layoffs, and also ensuring the long-term viability of the business.

 The whole COVID-19 situation presents obscure challenges to the entire economy, especially the travel sector. With no sign of the virus slowing down, measures to contain the spread grow while the hospitality industry sharply declines. What lies ahead is unpredictable but marching forward with hope and drumming up efforts helps us withstand the worst.

We find many unanswered questions at the root of uncertainty and plenty of advice around how businesses might navigate through this crisis. Well, there’s nothing black and white right now, and every business finds its own way through the grey areas. We’re doing that too, and that’s what I wish to share with everyone, about how we’re planning to bounce back and come through this challenge.

 We are keeping our execution simple: Plan Fast-Execute-Learn-Iterate-Repeat, from the time the sun rises to the time the last switch in our workplace, is off, all the while keeping the health and safety of our guests and teams untouched. In this brief window, we set several initiatives in motion to help us maximize the odds of beating an imminent global recession & economic slowdown. At this point, our goal is not only to mitigate headwinds on liquidity, but to prove that our business can outperform a market downturn.

 Demand Generation Initiatives

 While our homes have always welcomed guests from other cities to stay at our fully-serviced homes, we realize that our housekeeping, F&B, concierge, and self-services can also meet the needs of the local demands.

 The pandemic prompted unexplored opportunities: 

 Working from Serviced Apartments: Some of our Corporate Clientele are accommodating key members of their team at our serviced apartments and are using our properties as business continuity centers to collaborate & resume work.

 Self-served Quarantine Homes: Front-line workers and individuals returning from abroad rely on our Serviced Apartments and self-serve amenities to remain in quarantine.

 Self-served Home Isolation: Individuals along with their caretakers who have a medical condition (Non-COVID-19) who wish to isolate themselves away from their family choose our Serviced Apartments as their ideal homes.

 Since our spaces are thoroughly sanitized, cleaned regularly, have fast WiFi connections, functional kitchens, self-laundry facilities, large living rooms, and full-scale F&B services, we are able to immediately meet the demands. Adding to this, our self-contained environments with digital service request processes allow us to operate with fewer on-site staff, limiting in-person interactions, and promoting self-service during these challenging times. 

 It also brings us immense pride to be able to contribute our services to help those affected by the pandemic; opening our doors to serve a new category – the short-term rentals.

 We converted some of our locations into complete self-serve apartments to meet the specific needs of residents planning to live anywhere between three to nine months. This includes fully-furnished apartments along with amenities such as washing/cleaning appliances and fully-equipped kitchen without having to buy or rent separately. So far, we witnessed a positive response and an increase in reservations, helping us mitigate the revenue shortfalls experienced by the industry at large.

 Expense Reduction

Just as it has for many businesses, it is critical for us to relook at our cost structure to prepare the business for long-term sustenance. Should we continue with the existing cost and revenue tug-of-war, it would be unfair to all the stakeholders including employees who supported us all along. Despite our best efforts, the crisis forces us to make tough moves to counter the declining revenues.

 Pay-cuts: We issued salary cuts to the selected senior management for a minimum of three months. It is a pinch and impacts around 10% of our existing team, but looks reasonable when compared to what’s happening across the hospitality sector. We hope to readjust these measures as the magnitude of the impact on our business unravels.

 Temporary rent reductions and waivers: It’s certainly difficult to assess the depth and duration of the crisis, and we estimate a good six to twelve months before there is any recovery. The empathy of our landlords to offer flexible terms shows how much they’re equally invested in our long-term success.

 Other expense reductions: As time unfolds, we’ll re-examine all our cost drivers to tread this path more carefully and iterate our strategies based on the impact.

Training & Appraisals

Although it’s tough for all of us, we try our best to make hay while the sun shines. We mean to help our teams hone valuable skills during this lull and gain better positions at our organization. Given the level of uncertainty in the near future, we hope this adds immense value in their career with us or elsewhere. 

 We completed our annual appraisals as scheduled and this helped us provide feedback on critical areas and reset our expectations aligning to our current priorities.

How does our future look

We remain optimistic about the space we are operating in and are well-positioned to regain the momentum.

 New Properties: We made minor timeline adjustments to our to-be-launched properties by 90 days to allow the deployment of capital outlay and protection of the balance sheet. However, projects to be launched by the end of 2021 fill fall on schedule for now.

 New lease Sign-offs: We have tabled two new bids in the last 30 days to meet our long term supply goals. This will ensure we do not lose the market opportunity during the upswing in the next 24-36 months.

 In conclusion, it has been a spectacular display of teamwork and integrity of everyone at Skyla, delivering the promise made to our guests with speed and commitment. We hope to recount this time when Skyla overcame a global adversity and the most dramatic economic shock this industry ever faced with persistence and courage.