What have been the biggest challenges & opportunities presented by the pandemic for the Company.
A slumped market, delayed or cancelled projects, huge top and bottom line deficits were extremely challenging to survive and the entire economy itself slowing down made it extremely difficult to keep a calm head and struggle to keep the business engines running as they should have been. The biggest challenge to me was to ensure that all our employees were fully supported and looked after an achievement we managed to deliver upon in full. For me, my teams are the most important and it became my moral responsibility to see that they and their families were unscathed through the pandemic.
Apart from the challenges and difficulties, it did however serve as an accelerant in many ways!! In the big picture, it increased the urgency for a new vision of global growth, one that benefits more people and leaves our planet healthy. And this made us focus even more on our product line comprising of outdoor fitness which would ultimately serve the community at large and ensure a healthier world at the end of it!!
Crises such as COVID-19 can become watersheds of policy and strategy. The complexity of services, which often involve coordinating multiple functions in nonlinear ways, makes bad handoffs a perpetual problem. Add to these factors the burgeoning number of customer touchpoints and the accelerated move to remote working since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the challenge looms even larger.
What are the paradigm shifts seen in the customer behaviour and the Company’s business model to address the same?
A critical situation pushes human behaviour towards different directions with some aspects of behaviour being irrevocable. COVID-19 pandemic was not a normal crisis, and it definitely resulted in economic instabilities hinting towards change in market dynamics. In every market, consumers are the drivers of the market competitiveness, growth and economic integration. With economic instability, consumers will definitely display a transformation in behaviour.
What was needed was to undertake a detailed research to understand consumer sentiments or requirement in buying ‘what is enough’ within the marketing context and how it can be reinforced for ensuring sustainability of business models. There was also a need to explore the correlates of this forced consumer behaviour with other variables such as learning from crisis, changing needs, personality, nationality, culture, new market segment and age to deal with the new models of consumer behaviour.
What are your views on the Budget 2022 and what more could have been done?
Clearly it was a growth focussed budget. There is a dependence or a reliance on public investments to drive the economy. Another positive is that there is a huge focus that the government is putting on capital expenditure and they are doing it at a time when they are able to achieve substantial fiscal consolidation. The Budget largely focuses on the growth engines of the economy. The Budget provides a sustained impetus for creating world-class integrated multi-modal transport and logistics infrastructure while focusing on inclusive development.
The only thing it didn’t do in my opinion is that it didn’t really meet retail investor’s expectations even though it focuses on generating short term growth. In my opinion, I’d give it a 4 out of 5!!
Your outlook for the coming years and Company's growth plans
To concentrate on penetrating new as well as emerging markets, to constantly find ways to improvise and better our present offerings and keep the focus on innovating and ideating to ensure excellence in all we do as well as work on new product lines that will totally revolutionise the industry once again!!