Surviving through COVID and thriving thereafter

Webinar on “Surviving through COVID and thriving thereafter ’’held on April 21, 2020

Three Industry stalwarts shared their views on the challenges posed by the current pandemic and deliberated on the  importance of surviving it individually and thriving jointly.

•  Ganesh Natarajan – Chairman, 5F World, Ex CEO, Zensar
• Tapan Singhel – MD & CEO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance
• Dev Bhattacharya – Sr. Exec President, Aditya Birla Group and formerly a film maker and investment banker
• Vandana Saxena Poria – Serial Entrepreneur and CA, moderated the 90 minutes session

Ganesh opened the discussions and mentioned how preparedness was the key to survival. He delineated 3 important steps – Relief to Recovery to Resilience. He mentioned the following key aspects in his presentation:

• Since February 20th this year global markets have shed US$15 trillion of wealth
• ILO warns of almost 25 million layoffs if the virus is uncontrolled
• Global economy is expected to lose 9 trillion dollars due to COVID
• Could shrink up to 1 % in 2020 due to the pandemic (a reversal from the previous forecast of 2.5% growth)
• Continuous disruption of supply chain could lead to a global food crisis
• Deaths due to unemployment and migrating workers could make COVID deaths seem small in comparison
• Disruption will be seen across industries IT, healthcare, auto, apparel and consumer goods.
• Relief encompassed critical and urgent actions, employees, processes, financial and customers
• Recovery would largely focus on getting the business back to scale, revaluating this year’s business plan and strategy, considering the current disruptions
• Resilience would be greatly needed since nobody could predict the new normal
• He said ‘The best way to predict the future is to create it.’

Tapan spoke about his love for entrepreneurship and said “the greater the challenge the more glory in surmounting it.” He mentioned the following key aspects in his presentation:

• He quoted specific examples from his company, and how they have been steering themselves successfully to face the current challenges, which included devising strategies for prompt claim settlements, within 10 minutes
• They met with great success on that front with claims being settled within 30 seconds, 7 minutes and 20 minutes
• The current scenario is leading them to redefine their method of working
• Insurance is a high touch industry where physical proximity including personal meetings, face to face interaction, and signing of printed documents is an integral part of the work culture
• Social distancing and contactless procedures will now involve a completely new work style and contactless sales will be the new norm
• He sees a huge opportunity and huge transformation in the new work style
• Indians are gifted with ample resilience and he is positive that we will bounce back
• He is optimistic that the current scenario will make take the insurance industry to a new level
•  The insurance sector will redefine product offerings and customer expectations, retrain their team, particularly the sales staff and relook at different perspectives creating an ecosystem that is different
• He also dreams of creating a million jobs after this trying phase is over
• The resilience of Indians will make us emerge stronger after the COVID crisis.

Dev spoke about the uncertainties associated with the situation post the crisis. He admitted that he was as “clueless “as everybody else. He mentioned the following key aspects in his presentation:

• He said the current experience was a unique one, much like sailing in a boat in choppy waters
• The qualities that would stand an individual and a company is good stead would be the ability to be flexible and nimble in their approach
• He mentioned that entrepreneurs need to be realistic much like a mountaineer who can see his goal ahead of him
• He saw a tremendous need to be a cash flow oriented company
• Drawing specific examples from his company (the Aditya Birla Group) he mentioned that with the wide range of businesses that they handled they had moved towards aligning a few of those with essential services so that they could be operational even during the lockdown
• There was a surge of cultural and social activities within his company, which included feeding migrant workers, and delivering boxed vegetables to societies in Mumbai
• He emphasized the need to be proactive and adaptable as the key to survival in the new norm

The session saw active participation in the Q& A round