Lock down in a different view

I opened my eyes from a deep sleep. My alarm clock says it is 5.00 a.m. I must wake up now. We are already in 2023. It was like yesterday when our country hit with COVID-19. The second wave has already come and oh just how much it has affected us! The country is locked down but the economy is up and running. I was in deep thought, remembering all the outings we went, the parties we had in office; the warmth we had in each other’s physical presence. “Well. Well”. I told myself, “What is gone is gone. Here I am up well and fit, with no regrets of the time I die. It’s going to be a great day!”

My baby was in a sleep close to my husband, who gets to sleep little bit more thank to the ‘work from home policy’ we both have. If not we would have been running up and down yelling at the kid to get about the daily traffic we get. I straight away go to take a shower which refreshes my whole day. God! Hasn’t COVID-19 saved my hair going all grey.

 being in the AC at office? I just love my life!

I go to the kitchen and hear the sound of the early morning milk bottle at the door. I am so grateful that government has done so well to re-establish the Sri Lankan diary industry that we even can now drink fresh goat milk daily, which I chose as a mother and also the farmer boy is doing really well for himself.

We started to build this house last year, in the middle of COVID-19 and we purposely kept a good space for the back yard garden which is now shinning with vegetables and the front garden has space for my kid to run around in grass and for some fruit trees. The birdies are up before me and as I open the kitchen window I get fresh air.  “What a blissful morning!”

What is going to be the menu today? Well, I got a freshly ripped papaw here for a juice, and will put some chick-peas into the pressure cooker to boil to perfection. I can also toss some boiled eggs sprinkled with freshly ground pepper to complete the menu. For lunch, as we have my farther with us who is seemingly healthier than us, and we have all gotten used to eating red rice. I can pluck a little bit of green from the garden. Maybe fry some fish. And a thick Jackfruit curry (Kiri-kos) with hot Kochchi sambol would just be perfect.

That makes me think of the grocery shops and the fish sellers! They are doing really well with their online platforms! They just delivered us fish yesterday! I feel so funny remembering ‘Paliyagoda cluster’ in 2020.Now all these supermarket chains are far ahead than government, they reach farmers and deliver all fresh produce directly to the customers. I can remember how farmers cried in 2020 that government is not buying their vegetables and how customers cried that they do not have vegetables in the markets! And at least we now have our own Turmeric, Coriander, Dhal and Onion farmers doing really well compared to India. Since many boutique shops were acquired by “Grills” with their new franchise scheme, they actually secured their income and also the customers got the benefit

It’s true that we have limited imports but the local substitutes are everywhere. I am wondering where these new entrepreneurs were back in 2020! Like I saw “Made in China” products at every nook and corner of the country those days, I now see “Made in Sri Lanka”. Isn’t that great! I think the newly appointed ministers having drastically changed their strategies to encourage the local industries is the key to this. For an instance, you start a factory with 10 people; you can get a loan for almost free! And no tax. I should start my own thing one day! I must target the export market; the world is too big not to have a global customer base to a product! Okay! I am done with the cooking. Oh… the smell of my fresh kochchi sambol makes me hungry!

Here comes my good old nanny. She is from Polonnaruwa and lives with us. I take care of her and even help her family. We got her from an agency where they do PCR for their recruits and confirm the background while providing a guarantee for 6 months. It is just one agency that works directly against the poverty of Sri Lanka and government does support them. She is with us for 02 years now!  She helps me balance my life with my kid. 

My baby just entered grade 01 in school. How drastically changed the school system from last year! Government facilitates students and teachers to buy laptops! They also have this foundation interlinked with international and Private Sector, where they take care of the needs of poor students. I’m glad that I also contribute to one such poor child’s education. The NGOs of the country is also strong that they come forward to help the people in fully locked down areas with foods and essentials. And the whole country is 4G enabled! Children go to schools only if and when required. 

But what I like most is that the government announcing the G.C.E.A/L syllabus is going to be revised with all the technical subjects that encourage new manufacturers and entrepreneurs that cater to global market. The deep trap the country’s economy was in, created by the vicious square of Art, Commerce, Science and, Math is no more!

I’m having a very quality time with my baby and my husband and we used to walk on our roof top every morning. My baby then starts her online lessons where she is far ahead than all of us and since my nanny and my father is there we get to do our jobs without any disturbance in our office rooms.

Today is an important day of my life. I have been invited to connect online with a Canadian forum to give a talk on my newly introduced concepts of cost cutting! I immediately go back in my mind to my humble beginning. I was just a girl from Avissawella and my parents worked hard to give us proper education. I have got crushed in private buses on my way home after taking classes and stayed hungry in boarding places some days as I couldn’t ask my father for money time to time. I completed my degree and MBA and was so glad that at the beginning of 2021, I got qualified in CA. We were the first batch of CA students sat for the virtual convocation! The qualification sure gave a boost in my career and opened doors to new dimensions as I started to write my own blog with articles. Those were of great success than I expected. Now, I will have some time to re-look at my presentation

Watch out for costs of cost cutting!

As COVID 19 affected the whole world and with the failure of all introduced vaccines, we got to face the world; we got to run our business to run the economies. Sometimes our organizations are really pressured that the income is going down so that the costs have to be reduced somehow! “Some how” is a very ambiguous term, if we go by this term and start from laying off employees, it will seriously affect the down turn of your organization.

With the beginning of the 2020, some organizations led by this cost cutting principle, the justifications were brought in that said “it is better to run with small number of employees, rather fully shutting down”, “half of the salary is better than nothing” but some organizations protected their employees and looked for other ways of revenue generation with all possible ways of cost cutting. And we know today that out of both these who really have survived.

So I present to you, my theory of ‘Going Upside Down!’ in terms of cost cutting. Have you ever tried to stand up side down? To add more fear, in front of a crowd? We would feel horrible if we had to do so, wouldn’t we ?

But let us first see what do we need to stand upside down in a crowd?

-        Strong will

-        Tight cloths (Beware of looses clothes)

-        Lose weight 

-        Try and try

-         Celebrate your success and remember to ‘talk the walk!”

You must be wondering, ‘am I in the wrong session now, is this relevant!’ Of course! You are in the right forum!

Let me elaborate on the above concepts and how it this simple model can easily be applicable to identify means of effective reduction of cost in an organization.

Strong will – The management should have a clear and a strong will towards sailing through this storm the right way and this message needs to be communicated to all levels of the company. Tone at the top is important that you must tell yourself and your people that “we are going to overcome all these challenges and we will survive together!”

Also supporting the organization with changes such as adapting to technological advancements where ever possible with the cost analysis is also a part of the will. If there is a will, there is a way!

Tight cloths – These refer to your people’s attachment to the organization. Human resources are not like clothes; you can’t just buy a person attached to the organization. Sure it can be partly related to background checking at the recruitment but mostly it is the way you treat people and how you make them feel that the organization is with them. It’s a process that takes time, and once done the right way it can at times be your greatest asset and shield against multiple challenges.

Now let us think of the other side of the equation. Too much clothes are never going to help you out. You must analyze the job descriptions of people and their time utilization. Now, some employees are knowledge workers, you should not analyze them on the basis of their working hours, but on the deliverables and timelines and the importance of their contribution to the survival and even the growth of the business. After all, a pandemic is never going to last forever, but some employees are your future stars. So it is always advisable to analyze and profile your employees taking everything into consideration and treat your employees better so that they feel attached, motivated and loyal.

Lose weight – A company at this stage needs to lose all the unessential burdens of the organization. Similar to changing your life style to a healthy eating pattern, make an attempt to change the culture of your organization. For an instance, think about “working from home strategy”. Up to what extent you can go virtual and what costs you can forego through that? Allowing distant working of the service functions improves their motivation and delivers a better quality output due to a better work life balancing.  Companies can reduce over50% of its costs considering all overhead costs, by allowing people to work from home.

This is where you should be really cautious of the cost cutting. As per a latest research conducted by us the below weightings on costs cutting were really proven to be effective. Based on the nature of your organization this can be changed but more or less you have to analyze and see all of the cost elements for their worthiness and reduction. The research is basically about the inter-link between the staff motivation and the organizational success in pandemic times and a sample of such costs are as follows:

Accordingly it was found that the organizations start from ‘negative mortifiers’ ended up in a deep mess and the organizations turned around with different strategies even with the ‘extra mortifiers’ in difficult times are really doing well now!

Try and Try

None of your cost cutting strategies would reach perfection the first time. You have to learn from your mistakes but the key is that you learn it really fast. Eventually you will learn that it is not about cost cutting but about surviving the pandemic with the resources that you already have. This involves thinking out of the box.

You might have to transfer entirely to a new concept, new business, and new ways of doing things with what you have. Assume on the extreme worst scenarios that your business might face and extreme impossible achievements your business can reach, then work on to prevent the worst scenarios and reach the impossible achievements. Think of it as a continuum ranging from the extreme worst case scenario to almost impossible best case scenario that your business can get into. Now identify where you are and work with all your will and might to prevent reaching the worst end while pushing you towards the other end of the continuum. That is the way. And that way works.

Celebrate your success and Talk the walk

This too is one of the most important steps of the journey. As you reach your goals make sure to communicate to and celebrate those with the contributors, your people. Publicize your success so that it boosts the motivation of employees and also attracts the best people to your organization. In future, it will also open many other doors to multiply your success. You know all about walking the talk. Now is the time you talk the walk!

 “Teek…. Teek…” what is that sound, did I keep stop watch alarm on to practice my session…. I opened my eyes, oh… my alarm says it is 5.30 am and I see my blurred calendar behind the clock which says 2020 – December. I got to wake up as I have miles to go before I rest.

By : Arosha Lewwanduwage

(The article presented for the CA Sri Lanka- Students Society - Business Article Competition 2020 and got selected to the top 03 contestants)