"If You're Not Seeing Growth, Switch To Survival Mindset": Suniel Shetty On Byju's Layoffs

Suniel Shetty, a film actor, producer, and businessman, has voiced his opinion over Edtech giant Byju's decision to lay off 2,500 employees from several departments in order to cut expenses in light of increasing losses. In a LinkedIn post, the actor wrote that he is praying that the impacted ones will soon be able to get back on their feet at the earliest, and he would like to think that it was not an easy decision for the company to make.

Without mentioning Byju's, Suniel Shetty wrote in his post, "a recent article about a company laying off 2500 of its employees, was a tough one to swallow. Times 4, that's 10000 lives affected. I'd like to think that this wasn't an easy decision to make. Praying that the impacted ones are able to get back on their feet at the earliest."

"While valuations and fundraising activity saw a sharp rise over the last few years, it is now clear that of late the global sentiment has turned somewhat conservative," he added.

The actor claimed, in reference to the world economic downturn, "India may or may not be affected by the severity of a global slowdown to the same level as some of the other major economies."

The successful restauranteur added that he continues to believe in the "India story" and wrote, "I continue to believe in the India story. Among other factors, our population & its aspirations still present good businesses with a huge opportunity to continue their growth, even if it's at a slower rate than earlier. However, this is a good time for early-stage, small and mid-sized businesses to establish a few operating principles, at least until the sentiment starts to improve."

At the conclusion, he also gave the example of former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid and stated, "Think long term. Think sprint vs marathon. Think Rahul Dravid. Stable & slow is just as great."

Last week, Byju's chalked out a plan to become profitable by March 2023 to optimise its marketing and operational costs, which will lead to a retrenchment of 5 percent of employees, or about 2,500 people, in the next six months.

Byju's co-founder Divya Gokulnath told PTI that the company will start focusing on building brand awareness overseas through new partnerships and hire 10,000 teachers for India and overseas business.

Byju's booked a loss of ₹ 4,588 crore for fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, 19 times more than the preceding fiscal, as the nation's most valuable startup on Wednesday released audited financial statements after months of delay.

The losses in the 2020-21 fiscal widened from ₹ 231.69 crore in 2019-20. Revenues during FY21 dropped to ₹ 2,428 crore from ₹ 2,511 crore in FY20.

But in the fiscal ending March 31, 2022, the company said revenue soared four-fold to ₹ 10,000 crore but it did not reveal profit or loss numbers for that year.