The Pulse In The Time Of Covid-19

The fight against Covid-19 is in full swing. As of now China seems to have won the first battle. Other major Asian economies have also chalked up visible successes in mitigating the outbreak. On the other hand, Europe have been devastated and the US have just awakened from their illusions of invulnerability. On the economic front, a severe recession has already set in, and the question is of how long. But, no matter how grim the picture is and the forecasts are, we all going to ride this one out together.

In this backdrop, we reached out to several industry doyens to share how they see this crisis.

DILIP KAPUR

FOUNDER- HIDESIGN

This is clearly something we have not faced since World War II, any illusion that this will resolve itself within a month are going to land us only in trouble. How the businesses have to reorient themselves to survive is not clear. But we are assuming that there will be a significant decline in the next three months in our turn over, which will mean that we have to cut our costs equivalent to survive.

Our first priority is clearly our colleagues and people working with us at Hidesign. This will be protected to the maximum extent. The next stage is working out our relationship with our partners, the landlords in the malls and other stores as this is a very large percentage of our expense, it’s very important that we come to a satisfactory resolution on this.

The situation is at present very unclear as to how long the impact will be and how long the malls and the stores will be asked to remain shut. We are supporting all our existing workers in the front end with a large percentage of the salary being still provided, in spite of the stores being closed. We are also ensuring that they are safe by providing all necessary cleansers and masks for them during this period.

We have not seen the government step up yet in India, as other governments in Europe and the United States have, to help the business survive during this period. We expect that this will happen and eagerly await what the government expects from the business and how it will help us to survive for at least the next three months.