Today I came across this truly inspiring story of a woman entrepreneur named Malavika Hegde, and I'd like to share it with you. Malavika is, in fact, the CEO of CCD (Cafe Coffee Day), a very popular coffee and restaurant brand in India with 1700+ outlets across the country. You can see several Engineers in Bangalore CCD outlets deeply engrossed on their laptops while sipping a cup of coffee every now and then!
So, our story starts in July, 2019 when Malavika's husband and CCD founder, V.G. Siddhartha commits suicide and leaves behind a suicide note in which he blames almost everyone including his lenders, partners and even Income Tax officials for this extreme step. CCD's total debt at that time was a whopping ₹7000 crores (approx USD 9.5 million) and everyone in the market thought that CCD was going to end the same way as Xerox and Canon did many years ago. After all, who will pay this huge debt and have the courage to run the company?
However, Malavika was a determined woman and had other plans.
She wasn't the one who'd let CCD sink without a fight. Malavika knew the ins and outs of coffee industry, she applied some mind blowing management strategies and reduced this debt to mere ₹1730 crores in just two years! In a letter to employees recently, Malavika has said that the company has done this entirely on its own efforts without taking the help of a single penny from somewhere else. Very soon, CCD brand will revive, and come come out of all debts, and start making profits!
This is a truly remarkable and inspiring story of our time. A brand or company reviving itself in this manner from a huge debt is very rare in the industry, almost unheard of. Hat's off to this woman entrepreneur who achieved this, we need a lot more like hers.
No comments:
Post a Comment