11 Founders Shared Opinions on Strategies to Fight with Situation if the Lockdown Continues

Covid-19

Ashwini, Atish Ranjan Das

Apr 13, 2020 — 7 min read

Covid-19, which has shaken the whole world has brought everyone's life at halt. This highly contagious disease is spreading so fast that Indian Government has ordered 1.3 billion residents to stay home for 21 days. In this lockdown period, all malls, theaters, companies, shops, restaurants, manufacturing units are shut. This will affect businesses and economy badly. Many companies have told their employees to work from home. But, its not possible for all companies like manufacturing units, theaters, malls to let their employees work from home.

People are also scared of going out. This coronavirus has made people's lifestyle slow and it will take time for everyone including companies to come back on track after this long period of lock down. COVID-19 has put slowdown to a business everywhere. Travel, Hotel, Events, and Entertainment are the sectors that are suffering.

But, noone knows when this lockdown situation will end as number of new infected cases are increasing. So, Government may extend this lockdown till number of cases become low or government can remove partial lockdown from few places.

We have asked few companies about their strategies strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

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AppViewX

AppViewX is a modular, low-code software application that enables Certificate Management as well as Network Infrastructure Automation and Orchestration using an intuitive, context-aware, visual workflow. We asked Anand Purusothaman, Founder, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

I think we are well prepared should the lockdown continue as we have always been a virtually connected organization, with teams working across multiple geographies. We always had 4 day work week and work from home for all our customer facing teams. The investments and technical decisions made in cloud based services, virtual services, video conferencing has helped us run the business productively. Also having mandatory video conferencing for all leadership calls and key meetings helps us collaborate better with the personal touch. Last but not the least, the leadership team at AppViewX is committed to frequently communicating to all employees to keep the spirits up and move forward in a progressive and creative manner.

LegalWiz.in

LegalWiz.in is focussed on helping early-stage startups and small businesses stay compliant and maintain legal hygiene while maintaining the highest transparency on deliverables. We asked Shrijay Sheth, Founder, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

Our approach has been pro-active for the start. Our client relationships are robust, time-tested and we continue to deliver a superb CX - amply attested to by a 9.6/10 rating. That said, we plan to offer customised packages for our services. Moreover, there are a few sources from which we ensure a good business flow and hence we are equipped to cope. We will ensure that the team moral and efficiencies are high.

Primus Co-Work

Primus Co-work partners with restaurants ,that open only during the night, to convert them into co-working places from Mon-Fri/10am-6pm. We asked Shardul Bayas, Founder, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

If it continues, we will continue to plan and prepare for the day things open up. Keep the chin high so that we are ready to kick start when the lockdown is over.

Mamaearth

Mamaearth is Asia’s first Madesafe certified brand that offers 100% toxin free & natural baby and mama care products. We talked with Ghazal Alagh, C0-founder, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

We’ll use this time to focus on more medium and long-term strategic goals. Deep diving into our marketing, making our tech stack even more robust, improving our online discovery and user experience, and so on.

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Metro and Metro

Metro & Metro is one of the leading manufactures of shoes and allied product in india. We talked with Meenakshi Kalsi, Business Partner, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

We have to create opportunity out of adversity. Though the areas are very limited as we are manufacturing company as labourers won’t be allowed to come because of social distancing we need to find new processes and techniques so that we can start manufacturing without putting our labour in danger. We have already started to move in this direction. It’s a kind of challenge that none of us ever perceived but this is the time when the true sportsman spirit comes out and handles the challenge face to face. We may have to bend for a little time but surely we shall rise up because the wind does not break the trees that bend. And as I firmly believe that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Cosmo Films

Cosmo Films is a global leader in specialty films for packaging, lamination and labeling applications. We talked with Mr. Pankaj Poddar, CEO, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

Even if the lock down continues, the company would keep running operations in line with the permission of government authorities. We are a law abiding organization and would never compromise on compliance.

All necessary hygiene and safety compliance would be taken care of for the employees who are required at our different factories for essential operations. Their transport, food and safety will remain our responsibility.

Employees in support functions like HR, Purchase, Sales, Marketing and IT would continue to work from home with all necessary arrangements. They will help operations by providing them necessary support for smooth functioning of the plants.

upGrad Education

Founded in early 2015, upGrad offers online programs for working professionals. We talked with Mayank Kumar, Co-founder & MD, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

The current situation is a net positive for online education sector at large. With over 100% Q-0-Q jump, upGrad has expanded its portfolio twofold in the last quarter (Q4) by adding new programs under its Management and Data verticals and is in a position to command the highest ARPU of ₹2.4 lakhs in the Indian online education sector.

While I also believe that the WFH model is a double-edged sword, which could either bring new practices to life for higher productivity or could break the system in the long run. As a matter of fact, it is now ensuring our safety, but there will always be a demand for the physical workforce due to the nature of our product.

In order to minimise disruption, we are now video calling and conducting webinars with our prospective learners, to have the same impact that any personal interaction would have. This has also helped us in conducting additional counselling sessions for them every day, including that on weekdays which was earlier limited due to time lost while travelling.

So, to conclude, if we move into a time where the teams are to work from home, we would swiftly adapt to new practices and march towards creating new benchmarks.

Ecolab Digital Centre

Ecolab’ Digital Centre focuses on finding solutions to real-world problems around water safety, energy conservation, food security, and health & healthy environments. We talked with Malahar Pinnelli, MD, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

We will continue working from home irrespective of mandated lock down for next one month and we are now used to making most of this situation. But If complete lock down continues, I think we need to add more to essential services such as Laptops, UPS and New internet connections so that parts the businesses can contiue without larger Impact.

Excess2sell

Excess2sell is India’s Premier and leading b2b excess inventory marketplace which covers multiple verticals. We talked with Mr Rajan Sharma, Founder & CEO, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

Since the lockdown deadline has been extended we might witness a massive hit to businesses and consequently to the revenues. We feel that the challenges of situation will be realised across functions –in short term we expect the revenue to drop in absolute terms, but from a business development perspective we expect major scale up as sellers and buyers will start looking for liquidating unsold and overstock inventories.

ZingHR

ZingHR is one of the oldest HRM providers. ZingHR is one of the few global ventures which offers almost all web/mobile-based modules from Hire to Retire Solutions with state of the art tech supporting those applications. We talked with Prasad Rajappan, Founder and CEO, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

At ZingHR we have initiated some steps to manage the implications of the current situation with two priorities:

Ensuring Business Continuity for internal external stakeholders
To safeguard the health and safety of our employees, their families and our customers.
To ensure productivity is never compromised.

We are also conducting simulation exercises wherein we are regularly testing the communication channels which includes scenarios impacting the customers and employees.

Surmount Business

Surmount Business practices targets to become a strategic partner to entrepreneurs and enterprises to help expand businesses beyond their existing roots, professionalize their operations and enhance their Capital Efficiency. We talked with Niraj Bora, Founder, about their strategies to fight with situation if lockdown continues.

If lockdown extends, a lot of business processes will be redesigned and online methods will be widely used to cater to consumer needs. So, the strategy would be to tweak the business to cater to people without having an office / FaceTime with the team. Easier said than done, but it is possible since the entire IT sector currently is doing the same and many have reported increased productivity due to reduced commuting time.
E.g. An agri-supply chain company supplying only to B2B started to cater to society groups where the areas have been sealed in Pune. That has enabled them to continue or rather increase the business in the lockdown phase. They have tied up with Dunzo, etc to supply to B2C segment as well now.

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