Soon after he announced salary cuts that would affect more than 8,000 staffers, we did a Q&A over the telephone with Ravi Dhariwal, CEO of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, now a billion dollar company. BCCL’s publications include The Times of India and The Economic Times–two of India’s highest circulated English dailies. He says the measures announced today have been taken more to “get people to think along our lines” than for any material benefits. He thinks today’s measure won’t impact the company’s talent retention capabilities and says nobody could have predicted today’s business environment. Excerpts:
Do the measures you announced today indicate that the company is in a financial squeeze, and if so, what does it mean for the other projects the company is working on? Will ET Now be affected?
Not at all. The salary cuts don
BCCL has been such a fantastic company, but it has shown immature actions at the time when it required to send some message to other media companies.
Times Business Solutions Limited and Times Internet Limited are not going to be merged. TIL will acquire TBSL and all employees will be sacked.
If a CEO says he can't forsee the economic downturn or the rise in something so essential as Newsprint prices. Then someone in the corporate strategy/finance department is not doing his job.
the mail that mr Dhariwal has sent is the most confusing information that I have ever read. Better was expected from a media organisation. Why cant he just tell the individuals how much is their new packege (TTR) from now on. Jouranlists are not not CAs sitting with calculators.
Better late than never. Like the commenter above said it is a bit funny that the downturn was not seen as a possibility. Equally odd is the statement that revenues falling like this has never been seen before. If all strategy is based on things seen till now, a lot of positive innovation just won't be possible. I just don't buy that logic. Gut feeling: the mess is much deeper than what it looks from the outside.
Hi, Dont know if same panic situation is there in other media companies like HT / Indian Express but its a bad to see a 150 year old established company is fighting for its survival. Its a fact that ppl who are loosing their jobs in TBSL or BCCL are not the actual or real persons, which should be sacked. Irony is ppl who are responsible for this situation of such a great company are still happy and are in safe jobs.
I think BCCL is taking advantage of the fact that people cant complain in this environment and wont quit even if they are fedup. The money they are going to save by cutting salaries is going to be a drop in the ocean, compared to what they say they need.
Once other companies see this they are going to follow and things are going to go downhill from there.
Why not cut working hours
Why only Print??????????????????????
Not only print dude, its Internet as well.