The market is evolving through this difficult time and the companies are taking new shapes
alongside. The pandemic has affected the corporates and employees on a huge scale and indeed has
created massive difficulties throughout the transition from working hours to working from home
situation.
Social Connect is an initiative by GLOBALBNEXUS to connect employees and people in this hard time
and blow some steam off by discussing and putting forward their thoughts while everyone remains
indoors.
The discussion for the day was about the plan by Steps that can be taken by Corporates to normalize
after Corona and was divided into few points:
How the industries are affected by COVID-19?
What are the conditions of employees?
What is the possible plan-of-action after this gets over?
Joining panellist for the session Ms. Silky Sharma is an author & from Amity Business School, Mr.
Akash Chatterjee is working in the financial sector in TATA AIA and Ms. Aditi Aggarwal, who is an
entrepreneur.
Effect on Business
All the countries had the goal to certainly limit the virus to the first stage, to avoid any harm to
ongoing activities in the country. But as we see the situation now, the virus is touching the third
stage is most of the developed and developing countries.
Ms. Silky talked about how there was a delay in reporting the virus. She shared her personal
experience of the trauma she faced while she was returning from Japan at the time of emergency.
The only industry having a ray of hope in this thunderstorm is Health Insurance, which already has a
30-40% rise in inquiries. The awareness on the part of health insurance has increased as it dawned
upon us during this pandemic, unlike the regular days when fellow citizens didn’t bother about
getting one.
Dip in cash flow in the industry was another point put forward. The suffering conditions due to the
material that is just sitting in the warehouses which were bought way before the lockdown came
into the scene.
Movement for business is not at all in the picture due to the risk in traveling which makes restarting
the manufacture utterly impossible.
After an elaborate presentation over the current condition, Ms. Aditi gave some pointers to revive
the industry and what can be done meanwhile this lockdown exists.
The manpower is getting reduced and small teams are put up to work towards a specific task to cut
down costs over the human resource. Due to the impact on revenue to cost ratio, efficiency will be a
key to efforts that are being put up by the employers not the regular showing up at the office.
“Online ‘work from home’ process has proven to be a better alternative as the number of
working hours has increased”
R&D sector has earned respect throughout quarantine and massive traffic on online
platforms has increased keyword expenses.
Companies’ finance departments are majorly focusing on the management of
funds and plan on coming back strong in the market by using the marketing and
management tools that are available for now.
Multi-tasking is quite a need of the hour. Therefore, the demand for multi-skilled
employees seems like a viable option for corporates. Turns out, being the jack of all
trades is what lands you a desirable job now.
Outsourcing services and working with multiple industries together is another option
a company may be used to get off a load of work coming towards them.
Debentures are a very good scheme to attract funds and ineffectively pitching the investors.
Also, as a society stakeholder, companies are looking forward to tying up with health insurance
people for securing their employees’ health and implementing retentivity.
A good question was put up by Ms.Priya Dubey from Kolkata, a third-year undergrad student, who
asked: “What measures must be taken to curb this situation and regarding imports and workforce?”
Ms. Aditi added the fact that the struggle is all around the globe and the business in all countries is
down which means calling it a depression until everything is over is wrong.
Bouncing back of industry after the lockdown is quite expected and will certainly be with digital
advancement.
Rahul Aggrawal from Ambala questioned Ms. Silky over the academic loss during this time. The
turmoil in the mind of students was addressed by her and also the importance of summer internship
and field projects that are still pending. A virtual internship is an alternative taken up by many
universities. She suggested that even students must do their part by working on their skills and
keeping up with available study material and online classes.
The session was truly full of awakening thoughts and looking forward to a better tomorrow. It was
fun with all the jokes and debate that was going throughout the online gathering and thoroughly
refreshing.