PRS Oberoi, chairman emeritus of Oberoi Group, died on Tuesday. He was 94. (File image via X/@OberoiHotels)
It was on November 26, 2008, Prithvi Raj Singh Bikki Oberoi, chairman of Oberoi hotels, heard gunmen had stormed his properties on the edge of Mumbai’s Nariman Point. The first impression was that of a mafia attack, at least that’s what Oberoi’s HR head Chandan Chattaraj had told Oberoi. Chattaraj even told his boss that South Mumbai was notorious for such gang wars. More information trickled in, and it was then clear that terrorists had wreaked havoc in India’s financial capital.
Oberoi was calm. An hour before, he had picked up India’s Best Entrepreneur award from Ernst and Young at Mumbai’s Taj Lands End. He went into a huddle with Vikram and Arjun Oberoi and SS Mukherjee, his deputy. They were his most valuable employees.
Chattaraj told Oberoi: “It seems these terrorists had done a recce of our hotels.” Oberoi, always a perfectionist and a control freak, replied: “Reconnaissance, Chandan, reconnaissance.” Oberoi, whose hotels had set industry standards, was concerned about his employees and guests. And also about the perfect word his managers would use while talking.
Some wanted to tell Oberoi that they could speak to the city’s top cops to get more support but just could not gather courage to tell the veteran hotelier. Like the rules of the proverbial Phantom in the jungles of Denkali, everyone was terrified to even move a chair without his permission. So no one could call him to say they knew some big guns of Mumbai Police.
They did not know Oberoi knew all of them. When the dust settled and bodies were counted, Oberoi opened up The Oberoi Care Fund for the employees who died. He would always stand next to the employees, and the guests (in that order).
“In the world of hotels in Asia, there is no greater currency than Bikki Oberoi,” Chattaraj told Moneycontrol. “For over five decades he has cut his teeth among the rich and fashionable and earned a rock-star status of his own.”
Chattaraj remembers his final interview with Oberoi. Old-timers at the hotel told Chattaraj to be properly dressed, he was told Oberoi would start from the bottom. It means you cannot wear shoes without polish. “One black coffee and I emerged supercharged from a milestone meeting. I realized I would be working for a doyen of the Indian hospitality industry.”
Oberoi wanted everything to be picture perfect, everything modern. Once he was told the fax copies were reaching his guests a trifle late. He hired Mckinsey for time management and to analyse how much time is required to service the guests. Once the report came in, Bikki coined a term, I take charge, pasted the words on the shirts of a handful of gurkhas. He told them to run like sherpas in 30 seconds and handover the fax to the guests and create an instant impact.
“It was his Oberoi Wow Effect. It worked like magic and the guests were floored. It did not stop there. Oberoi asked his staff to wear a badge that read, The buck stops here. It meant the person will deliver what he or she is asked by a guest,” remembers former front office executive Vivek Dutta.
“In Oberoi hotels you are on constant alert,” remembers Dutta, adding: “He had a Robert De Niro accent and attitude.” Oberoi would never tolerate nonsense. His work would always start and end with shotgun efficiency. He wanted his managers to realize that people book Oberoi rooms because they were looking for more than just a bed, and breakfast.
Each property of the Oberois had a distinct character. In Oberoi Grand, Kolkata, some of the managers were trained to silently deliver paan to guests in their room after dinner, and in Vanyavilas in the heart of the Ranthambore forest, his managers allowed guests to see from up close how wild cats eat their kill.
The group benefited from Oberoi’s aesthetic ingenuity and combined with his marketing and organizational muscle to gain stature in the Asian hotel market. Top marketeer Suhel Seth remembers how Oberoi would look for the minutest of details in the room, he would worry about the length of the wires to the plug point. “Bikki Oberoi was an old-world charm with a modern-day relevance,” Seth told Moneycontrol from New York.
Seth says he accompanied Oberoi to the inauguration of Udai Vilas in Udaipur and much to Seth’s horror, he found the lovely pool not heated. Oberoi almost threw a fit but managed to work with his engineers for four hours to ensure the pool was heated up. “Everything, drinks, dinner got delayed but Oberoi would first finish a pending assignment and then relax (with a cigar).”
Seth once advised Oberoi to put two telescopes in Cirrus9, the lavish rooftop bar at Oberoi Delhi. Bikki loved the idea but it was shot down by the Delhi government because of security issues.
Image guru Dilip Cherian says Bikki’s father trained him in Punjabi earthiness and global consciousness. He picked up the latter and turned his entry into the boutique segment, among the fastest-growing in the hotel industry.
“He was always confident in his systems. I once asked for bottled water during a private lunch and Oberoi said I must ask for his filtered water because they were world class.”
Oberoi knew each traveller has different needs at different times, he created portfolios of different price and service levels in order to build loyalty across a family of brands. Amitava Sarkar, who worked as a lead concierge in Oberoi Grand remembers Bikki as a man of steel, a man of nerves and a man of few words. “I would meet him once every year when he would fly into Kolkata for the Oberoi board meeting in his Hawker-800 corporate jet. Some hotels had all the cash to manage big brands, Oberoi had the ability to create it.”
“He reminded us that design is just a marketing tool, his ideas came from his heart,” remembered Sarkar.
And he cared for everyone. Many at Oberoi Delhi remember one estranged member of the Oberoi family who lived in a room designed in black and white. She was taken care of, so were her pet white cockatoos.
PRS Bikki Oberoi cared for his family, and his employees. There is a deathly silence now at the Oberoi Farms on the outskirts of Delhi.
PRS Oberoi tribute: Employees remember Oberoi's commitment to service and safety of staff and guests - Moneycontrol
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