Pause, Think & Rebound in Uncertainties

Great things happened in the last decade with the world flourishing, improved lifestyles of people, disruptive technologies enabling communities. Suddenly it feels like a reset button has been hit. The earth has come to a standstill because of the lockdowns caused by the invisible enemy. In the absence of a vaccine, there are uncertainties on how long before we have one, how many businesses will see an untimely demise? We all are confronted with our business viability with the businesses of our customers taking a hit. 

 I believe that every adversity brings opportunities along with it. Before the virus caused such massive disruptions, everybody was running a marathon without knowing the reason and the destination. And there was a loud whistle to STOP! It is an excellent opportunity for businesses to think about how they want to do things in the future. For instance, ER&D is a big community which covers several sectors such as Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Automotive, Semiconductor, Telecom, Computing and realities for each industry is different today. While a few segments are in shambles, there are opportunities and high demand in sectors such as High-Tech and certain types of Medical Devices. We have to think strategically and take advantage of these opportunities. Just like the Y2K issue opened up unprecedented opportunities for India—led by its vast technical talent pool and industry-friendly policies, this pandemic too will open gates to new horizons. All we need now is to have a positive and open mind to pause, think and reflect to the new changing realities. 

Business continuity and surviving this pandemic is the real battle we all are fighting. Just last year, the ER&D community had created a roadmap to turn itself into a $100Bn revenue creator of Indian economy by 2025. But with unprecedented times, the roadmap needs to be redefined, keeping in mind the changed realities of the business ecosystem. 

Another critical aspect for the services sector is cost containment and ensuring a healthy cash-flow. If our customers are ramping down, we too are going to be impacted. One month of cost is one year of profit. Therefore, the need of the hour is to: 

- Fight for revenues

- Be close to the customers

- Be flexible with customers

- Cash is the king so conserve it

- Take care of your good people

- Be generous to the people in desperate need

- Cooperate & help each other and not forget to invest in technology

 We in ER&D are a community of engineers who improve the way people travel, communicate, ideate, innovate, compete, stay healthy, celebrate, have fun live well and live better. This makes me optimistic about what lies ahead of us, and I am sure that we will take advantage of the situation to find new avenues to rise and thrive. I am confident that once we get rid of the invisible enemy, this data-driven age will help us get back to normal quickly, and we will be innovating far more to make human lives better. 

We, humans, are social animals by evolutionary imperatives. A year of COVID will not erase millions of years of our evolutionary making. We would want to communicate, celebrate, travel and have fun – we would want to live again! 

Things are drastically going to change in the future and I am keen to know YOUR perspective of the following:

1. Do you think India can gain a more significant share of the world’s supply chain?

2. Will tech consumption in India grow many folds internally, and should Indian companies be making tech for India?

3. Is Industry 4.0 set to get a big boost; will we have more people less or less-people factories much faster??

4. Is the concept of a shared economy gone?

5. Have Travel & Tourism and the airline industry; gone for a while?

6. Is this really end of globalization or another catalyst for it?