Winner’s Speak - SITA Inbound

Himmat Anand, COO, SITA Inbound, in conversation with Anindita Chattopadhyay speaks about the company’s success and its future plans

What does the award mean to SITA Inbound division?

An award of this nature has great significance for us. For one, it has behind it Indian Express and Galileo, which are true leaders in their own field and hence recognition from them is a matter of pride for us. Secondly, achieving the award in the very first year it has been instituted adds extra value. No doubt, it will motivate us to do better. It is also a matter of further satisfaction to us that earlier this year we received another award from the Department of Tourism as India's number one foreign exchange earner in tourism.

What according to you was the secret of your success?

Basically, it is a matter of team members having conviction in their ability - that they are capable of delivering the best. This, coupled with a clear strategy to continuously break down a large division into smaller and clearly focused business units, each handling a certain market segment, has allowed us to maintain our position of leadership. We invest heavily in IT as we firmly believe that in this lies our future. We also encourage our people to take risks as only those who occasionally fail are the ones who actually finally succeed. It is risk taking that differentiates the winner from the loser.

How do you plan to retain this success and increase your market share?

Ideally, one should not change a winning formula too soon. Our present success is based on the above-mentioned strategies recently implemented, so we plan to grow on them. We have moved away from traditional 'monument tourism' to more 'interactive tourism' which has shown positive gains. To increase our market share, we have identified other areas like Medical Tourism, which we feel have potential and have launched a Business Unit - SITA CARE.

What are the company's future plans?

One objective will be to continue to grow through the acquisition process and we will continue to look at taking over businesses that suit our requirements. This we feel is a quick and logical way to grow in a market, which is not necessarily expanding at the pace we would like to expand. We will also aggressively participate in all major trade shows and marts - we presently attend nine international shows annually.