With the recent surge in coronavirus cases, businesses in India have been facing severe crises once again.India is hard hit by the second coronavirus wave and restrictions on movements have once again been imposed in several parts of India. Owing to the critical situation, businesses in India across the industries are again struggling to generate revenues to remain cash afloat. Praveen Sinha Jabong Co-founder , had said that the economic slowdown due to the second wave is short lived.
“We have been severely hit by the second wave and the whole nation is being impacted by it severely and businesses are no exception. However, as the infection cases will slow down and with the enhanced rolling out of vaccines, business across the sectors will revive and the economy will boom. Here, an aggressive vaccination programme is key as we might see multiple waves coming in. The market will remain resilient because we already went through that experience and have learned a lot,” he says.
He also said that the toll on the economy is not as harsh as it was during the first wave. “Unlike before, the Central government avoided the imposition of pan India lockdown. Moreover, the businesses are now evolved to run their operations in such adverse situations. Introduction of technology, such as digitisation of the businesses have also helped several of them to pull out from market adversities since the last year,” adds Praveen Sinha.
For businesses, he suggests, “Many entrepreneurs are anxious about the revolving uncertainties in reference to Covid-19. Sometimes the lockdowns are imposed and the team has to work from home, sometimes the team is infected with coronavirus and they can’t work and such similar problems are appearing regularly these days. Here, you will have to be more flexible, for instance, you can cut down the cost by making your team a combination of freelancers and full-time employees. Amid such uncertainties, adopt a flexible work model, that is going to help you a lot in reducing fixed costs, eventually making your business run successfully.”
He also said that outsourcing few specialised operations such as finance and marketing can help in cost reduction. However, Praveen Sinha also said that outsourcing sometimes is “understood as lack of interaction and integration. But functions like finance and marketing can be outsourced with specialised service with clear output and active engagement and interaction.” Being a stalwart in the e-finance industry, he also suggested few solutions towards addressing the uncertainties of the consumers. “We will have to develop payment models such as flexible EMIs, lease models, co-sharing models, where we can try offering services and products to the clients,” says Praveen Sinha. He also added that e-commerce and digital media will witness a boom given the present situation. “The focus should be on how can we provide products and services to clients so that they can use it even during the lockdown.”
