Leadership series: Bikash Randhawa

Our CORE Leadership Series showcases leading figures in the industry through detailed, insightful interviews.

We are here talking to Bikash Randhawa, former Chief Operating Officer of Village Roadshow Theme Parks, Australia.

Tell us a little about yourself and your business

Bikash Randhawa brings more than 30 years of leadership experience across Australia’s tourism, entertainment and hospitality sectors. 

He has a proven track record of leading large, complex operations, delivering sustainable revenue growth, investing in guest experience and building high-performing teams. 

His experience across major tourism precincts on the Gold Coast makes him ideally suited to lead any tourism and hospitality business on a large scale. 

He has always Operated through people and with people, you don’t win by trying to control everything yourself. 

You don’t scale by being the smartest person in the room. 

You win by building capability, creating clarity, and holding yourself and others accountable.

In his last position as COO he was directly responsible for the operations, safety, retail, food and beverage, accommodation assets and sales and marketing exceeding revenues over $500m

What initially inspired you or sparked your interest in pursuing this career?

I came to Australia some 30 plus years ago with a bag not knowing a single person, I felt getting into hospitality was to best way to understand the Australian way of life and to make friends. 

Hospitality is not for everyone, you need to be fully invested, service and to give good service is essential for success. Whether it’s food, a room or an experience, we must create memories for every guest, it is in that moment that people forget about their day-to-day life and enjoy every touch point in a business. 

We are in a people’s business; we rely on people who breathe life into bricks and mortar and it’s equally important to create the right culture and team environment to deliver this. 

I have always given my best with no matter what position I held, my efforts were always to give every paying guest the best experience and to constantly learn every day on how to innovate and keep up with consumer behaviour. 

What motivates you in your work and what do you find most fulfilling about being a business leader?

The single biggest motivation for me is to watch families, individuals walk out of my business with a smile creating memories and then coming back again. 

One of the hardest things for any business today is repeat visitation, holding on to and maintaining a loyal following helps to grow a business in a sustainable way and this is where one needs to constantly evolve, a set and forget approach never works. 

Understanding trends and the way consumer behaviour is changing is important, technology is integral and a perfect balance of tech and the human factor delivers for every operator. I have never allowed a tittle to change who I am, I always embraced the KPI’s that came with the position but never allowed it to change who I am, when I was a supervisor to becoming the COO, the person i was remained the same, my values, care for people no matter who thy were never changed but KPIs changed. 

There is no room for EGO, respect, culture, equality, passion I strongly believe in, I have been a firm operator but have always been fair.

Thinking about the (current) macro-economic and social environment (cost pressures, labor market, changing customer expectations, sustainability), what shifts do you believe will redefine “success” for our sector in the coming year or years?

Competition is going to become stronger, innovation and technology is moving at an incredible pace, any business that does not embrace this will struggle. 

When you observe how 15 year olds are consuming product in the next 5 years or more, they will be your customers, and your business needs to understand this and be ready for them. 

The challenge and the opportunity are to stand out and give people a reason to come to you and not your competitor is what will make it or break it for any business. Your media campaigns and strategy need to stand out in today’s environment, it just cannot be noise, it needs to be clear, simple and precise with a personalised approach.

If you could influence one thing about the future of hospitality (policy, regulation, social trend, business model…) what would it be, and why?

One of the biggest challenges we are facing in Hospitality is finding skilled people, whether its in housekeeping, food and beverage, it’s a tough industry and requires a lot of commitment, more support is needed to incentivise traineeships, apprenticeship, regulatory bodies need to make it easier for operators to operate as cost pressures remain across COGS and labour. 

This is one of the oldest and in many ways becoming essential for people as they always will want to go out and we need to ensue that we are able to deliver the best experiences. 

It is also equally important for leaders to share their knowledge and to encourage and create more ambassadors for our industry, coaching, training on the job is becoming increasingly critical to becoming successful and growing skills in our Industry.

What skills or mindsets do you think will be most important for the next generation of hospitality leaders?

AI will become more and more imbedded into everything we do and for leaders particularly in hospitality we need to understand where will this be most effective and how do you find the balance between technology and the human aspect of service, there needs to a conversation around this across the industry to position and model sustainable outcomes that can be implemented for the right reasons and how does it become simple to do, not just for larger operations but for everyone to provide consistency particularly in hospitality venues. 

What advice would you give emerging leaders who want to shape the future of hospitality?

Running any business is based on simple principles, top line is vanity and bottom line is sanity, in the middle lies the challenges and opportunities to evolve and tweak as leaders lead, keeping a constant eye on this leads to a sustainable approach in growing your business no matter what it is, a leader should focus on their core areas, leaders need to lead by being present with their teams, a great team compliments one another, internal competitions are healthy, but more important is to win as a team and grow as a team. 

Your guests are the ones that pay your salary and listening to them is not difficult, engaging them in a meaningful way, creating loyalty and personalisation via your data base is critical