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Pyare Lal & Son Ioc Dealer Dalhousie Road Pathankot

                                                                    To General Public

It is false news that my mother Mrs, Manjit Ahluwalia is no more proprietor of M/s Pyare Lal & Son Ioc Dealers Pathankot. She is still owning Business and nobody has been given right of ownership to anybody including me. Nobody should fall in fake hearsay

Mohnish R A

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Eat, Pray, Sanitise

Zomato delivery boys outside Bandra's iconic Lucky restaurant say they have nowhere to go, as fewer people are ordering in during the COVID-19 lockdown. When little else offers comfort, food—if you’re privileged to access it—assumes huge meaning

Perhaps as chilling a read, in these times, as Albert Camus’s The Plague would be Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. For totally different reasons, of course. Consider, for instance, the chapter 'From our Kitchen to your Table', in which the celebrity chef offers that “good food and good eating are about risk”. At a time when you’re pulling out all stops to eliminate that four-letter word from your lexicon and life, ‘discount sushi’ or dodgy oyster can be given the go-by, thank you very much.  But what’s a square meal without some saltwater staple? As the wise man said, “Wherever the fish are, that’s where we go.”

You step out to the neighborhood supermarket, scurry to the seafood section and lasciviously eye the kingfish on ice. Until Bourdain’s advice on why “I never order fish on Monday” or the “Monday Special” rings alarm bells in your brain. You may be buying fresh but the similar logic holds. Here’s how:

Chefs tend to order fish on Thursday, with delivery scheduled for Friday morning, to cope with the weekend rush. “The chef is hoping to sell the bulk of that fish on Friday and Saturday nights when he assumes it will be busy. He’s assuming also that if he has a little left on Sunday, he can unload the rest of it then—as seafood salad for brunch, or a special. Monday? It’s merchandising night when whatever is leftover from the weekend is used up, and hopefully sold for money.” Essentially, if you’ve consumed the fish on Monday, you’ve devoured seafood that’s five days old—and not in the most optimum refrigeration conditions. Not a comforting thought on the gut.

Weekend rush is no doubt an oxymoron in a lockdown, yet Bourdain’s theory works at another level: At a time when demand is at rock bottom, for how long has that Pisces been isolating on ice? So you instead opt for canned tuna and salmon, walk out the store and past the line of people rooted in their squares, a couple of meters from each other. If Bourdain was right, one of them is going to be done in by the Monday Special. You chide yourself for that evil grin.

As you drive from the south of the city towards the suburb of Bandra, you’re finally getting used to a city that’s learned to sleep (perhaps not at night, though). The only people on the roads are masked policemen, masked citizens lugging groceries—and masked delivery boys at street corners. This is a city synonymous with Khao gallis and street food—from the puri and pav bhaji to dabeli and vada pav, to anda burji and boti kabab. Now all you see are delivery boys with almost nowhere to go.

You meet a group of Zomato boys in their ubiquitous red T-shirts outside Bandra’s iconic Lucky restaurant. They’re in a mood to talk. “Business is down,” shrugs one. “If we were earning Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,400 per day before the pandemic, now we take home Rs 300 to Rs 350. “People are too scared to order from restaurants,” adds another. Restaurant food is now like Monday fish, you ruminate. “It’s not just that,” pipes in the third. “People are also conserving money as they don’t know what the future holds.” Delivery makes way for analysis when business slows down.

You move on, past another supermarket with a queue outside. Evidently, in these times, standing in line for your supper beats ordering in. A few hundred meters away is the bakery with whom much of Bandra has broken bread over the decades. He’s also advertising hot cross buns for Good Friday. And roast chicken for resurrection Sunday.   Easter lunch on Zoom, anybody?

In times of COVID-19 and lockdown, ‘comfort’ food, if you’re privileged to access it, takes on huge meaning. When little else offers relief—not even the tender assurance of touch—food, along with books, can console and calm. Just don’t mix the ‘wrong’ book with the ‘right’ food. #MohnishRANotes

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Innovative marketing in times of Covid-19

What should brands 'do' or 'not do'? These are defining moments that will determine the future of brands

“Necessity is the mother of invention”. Some of the finest innovations happened during crisis situations. Be it zippers getting mass produced during World War 1 to improve military uniform efficiency or Vitale Brahmin inventing vulcanized rubber soles after six climbers were killed in the Italian Alps in 1935; tough times are always an opportunity (or maybe necessity) for new ideas.

The pandemic of COVID-19 has led to tough times for brands. Plunging consumer confidence, loss of jobs, restricted mobility and falling GDP has led to recession-like situation and falling consumerism. Well, definitely a scenario from action-packed science fiction novel which probably is a lifetime event! Marketers are worried, brands are in dilemma and new launches have come to a halt!  But innovation happens when we look for bright spots in these dark days.

What should brands ‘do’ or ‘not do’ is hence important. These are defining moments that will determine the future of brands. Some tips which can come handy during this time:

1. Innovate & Adapt

Look for new opportunities for brand innovations. Expand your portfolio, address consumer’s pain-points and fulfill their unaddressed needs. Tough times force us to leave our comfort zones in search of new pastures. Dettol and Lifebuoy launched hand sanitizers during 2009 swine flu scare and Dettol launched a disinfectant spray in 2019 during COVID spread. Dabur and Chik have introduced their range of hand sanitizers. Dominos has launched ‘touch-free’ delivery choice promising safe pizza delivery to consumer homes. It’s your choice- whether you wanted to see collateral damage from COVID 19 or an opportunity for something better! Well! aren’t families spending more time together? Are people not living healthy with less traffic and pollution and eating healthy home food amidst the COVID lockdown? These are the times for planning relevant brand extensions and extending product category portfolios.

2. Build Brand Equity

These are sensitive times and brands can make or break destiny in these moments. Some brands could be desperate and resort to discounting and sales promotion to boost sales. However, consumers are locked inside and too unsure of tomorrow to fall for these promotions. They will stock necessities irrespective of price increase/ decrease to secure themselves. In fact, using ‘virus’ as an anchor and moment marketing can lead to negative brand sentiments. People do not want to be reminded of things they are scared of or avoid. The marketing investments should hence be aimed at long-term brand building wherein brands understand the consumers and be their friend. Budgets are slashed and so brands have to use this money more effectively. Living brand values and caring for the community will give brands an edge over the competition. Lifebuoy is distributing free handwashes and sanitizers to consumers with limited resources. Asian Paint has beautifully integrated the message of #stayhome into its advertisement to enhance brand equity and how this is an opportunity to spend more time inside and with your loved ones. These are certain investments that could be ‘moment marketing’ but definitely go a long way in building strong brands.

3. Be Sensitive

Content marketing around COVID and the virus scare can cost heavy unless genuine. Sensitive moments can hurt sentiments easily and turn the brand perceptions to negative. In fact, marketers have to relook at their current campaigns and see if the tone and content are still appropriate. Consumers won’t look at the world the same way as they did a few weeks back.  It’s important that brands understand the fear and the concerns of the consumers and take a stand which can help build enduring relationships. Brands are like humans and these are the moments to build an emotional connection with consumers, an alliance where both can complement and support each other.

4. Care (for employees and customers)

Everyone is distressed. It is a tough time for many sectors including airlines, hotels, etc. Companies have a choice to either lay off people or ask them to proceed on unpaid leave (read Virgin airlines) or retain their people, care for them and support them. Internal branding is not only on papers and through some campaigns or promotions. It is practiced through actions and behaviors of management, especially during crisis moments. People won’t remember companies and brands for campaigns they created but for those silent steps they took to prove that they ‘genuinely’ care. Influencers are critical at these times and they emerge from your employee or customer pool. Let influencers talk about your initiatives and work. Don’t be skeptical of this silence, rather find solace in it as it would help brands build credibility and trust in the long term.

5. Have an Eagle Vision

Brand needs to look at long-term gains. This is an opportunity for brands like Netflix and Hotstar to connect with people and expand their reach and clientele. Consumers are locked inside homes with limited entertainment options. Stress due to uncertainty and loneliness make people vulnerable and these brands can find a place in consumer’s life by offering free or subsidized entertainment options.  Online communication platforms like Skype, Blue Jeans, Google hangouts and Zoom among others are seeing an upsurge in demand. They can benefit from not looking at this scenario from a classical microeconomic perspective but take a more humane approach by providing their services at less rather than more. Byju’s and Google classroom can ensure that learning doesn’t stop. E-commerce platforms can be innovative to help people stock necessities without the need to hoard yet maintain the social distance. Zoom which has suddenly seen the ‘hay days’ for business removed 40-minute restriction in its free plan. This is just a small step to ensure that people are hooked onto you and remain loyal to you even after times change. We all need to change the perspective and look at the world with a different lens and we shall for sure see some green pastures.

Marketers always find it tough to change habits. But these crisis situations are the stimulus that nudge consumers to change the ‘routines’ and the habits. Now the onus is on brands as to how they can find a place in these new routines.

Well.. 2020 seems to be uncertain but one thing is sure that this too shall pass and when consumers are back on the streets, cafes and the malls, they would have left behind memories of dark days but would remember the brands that did not use these times to generate more cash but as an opportunity to find a place in the consumer’s heart.  Great brands create strong brand equity if they handle these moments well. They stand out from others by living their core values, eschewing short term gains in favor of caring for their employees and customers. They know how to use the brand-building media effectively to generate a share of voice to emerge not just alive but a winner in such situations. #MohnishRANotes

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What will tomorrow's workplace bring? More elbow room, for starters

Benching - desks lined up side by side - is evident in the Seattle office of B+H Architects on April 1, 2020. Building owners and company leaders — and those who help them manage properties and design workplaces — have begun to anticipate the time when the shelter-in-place orders are lifted and people start heading back to the office

Workplaces may have significant changes in the long run, including new seating arrangements and the addition of building materials that discourage the spread of germs

Many people are weeks, if not months, from returning to their offices and regaining a semblance of a normal workday. Given the recent layoff and furlough announcements, many are wondering whether they will even have a job after the dust settles.

But building owners and company leaders — and those who help they manage properties and design workplaces — have begun to anticipate the time when the shelter-in-place orders are lifted and people start heading back to the office. Those in the midst of planning suggest that the post-pandemic office might look radically different.

Returning workers can expect stepped-up cleaning and a reinforcement of social distancing. Hand sanitizer stands will probably be positioned in lobbies. Maintenance staff will swab door handles. There may be limits on the number of people allowed in an elevator.

Workplaces may have significant changes in the long run, including new seating arrangements and the addition of building materials that discourage the spread of germs. New technology could provide access to rooms and elevators without employees having to touch a handle or press a button.

Even if such changes won’t greet most employees at first, their return to the office may be carefully choreographed.

In the short term, signs may be posted reminding everyone to wash hands — and perhaps stick with elbow bumps rather than handshakes and hugs. Disinfectant wipes will be everywhere.

Some companies are considering phasing in employees to limit the number of people on the premises and ease them back to office life after a prolonged period of sequestering at home.

“You’re trying to build confidence and a secure feeling,” said Matthew Barlow, a vice chairman of Savills, a real estate company.

Remote-work practices that many companies have adopted in recent weeks are likely to continue in some form for the foreseeable future, leaving some offices lightly populated and making it easier for workers to spread out.

Alternating groups of employees at the office is also under discussion.

“There could be A teams and B teams working different days,” said Scott Rechler, chief executive and chairman of RXR Realty.

Moving desks farther apart could also give workers more elbow room.

Over the past decade, many companies eliminated private offices in favor of open plans, but the amount of space per office worker declined 25%, said Janet Pogue McLaurin, an architect and principal at the design firm Gensler, which has been tracking changes in the workplace in annual surveys since 2008.

The typical workstation of a decade ago — the cubicle — was 8 by 8 feet. By 2015, the workstation was down to 6 by 8 feet, and in recent years, the contraction has continued.

Benching — desks lined up side by side — has been another way workers have been squeezed.

A benching desk with a width of 6 feet would be consistent with current social distancing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But many desks are not that wide. And often one row of desks faces another row so that employees are directly opposite their peers.

To create a 6-foot radius around each employee, companies may have to pull desks apart or stagger employees so they are not facing one another, experts say.

Companies are considering other ways to give employees breathing room.

A conference room intended for 12 might be repurposed as a meeting room for six. In lounge areas, chairs could be placed farther apart. Chairs on casters will permit people to roll seats a safe distance from colleagues.

“The whole point of kinetic furniture was to bring people together,” said Kelly Griffin, a principal at NBBJ who leads the architecture firm’s workplace strategy group. “Now it has a different function: to pull people apart.”

Ten percent of American office workers no longer have assigned seats, according to Gensler. This so-called hot-desking, or hoteling — where employees do not have designated desks but instead come in and find a place to sit — may go on hiatus, if only until the fear of contagion fades.

“Maybe we don’t move around quite as much,” McLaurin said.

Or gather in large groups. All-hands meetings may not resume immediately, said Michael Kleinberg, president and partner of MKDA, an interior design firm. “Nobody is going to want to come,” he added. “I think there’s going to be a continuation of Zoom meetings for a while.”

However, the pandemic may result in fundamental changes that will be around for years to come, altering how office buildings are designed.

Just as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks created tighter security measures in office buildings and flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 prompted the elevation of mechanical systems, the coronavirus may focus attention on air circulation and filtering.

Sensor-activated controls may also increase, reducing the number of surfaces that need to be touched in an office and allowing workers to use elevators and open doors with the wave of a hand.

Certain materials may come to the fore. Smooth surfaces that are easy to wipe will be preferable to textured or porous ones that could harbor germs. And antimicrobial materials used in hospitals and laboratories may migrate to offices. Interest has surged in new materials such as those that mimic sharkskin, to which microscopic organisms have difficulty adhering.

Some old metals may experience a revival. Copper and its alloys — including brass and bronze — have been shown to be essentially self-sanitizing, able to kill bacteria and, early studies suggest, perhaps even the coronavirus plaguing the planet.

The ability to work from home at least a few days a week — long sought by many American workers — may be here to stay.

Even firms that previously insisted on everyone’s being in the office — either from the force of habit or a suspicion that employees would loaf if not under management’s watchful eye — have discovered that the work-from-home experiment that the crisis has thrust on large swaths of the American workforce has turned out better than expected.

“A big light bulb went off during this pandemic,” said Anita Kamari, vice president at Isometrics, a workplace services firm.

Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, expects more than 25% of employees to continue working from home multiple days a week, up from less than 4% who did so before the pandemic.

“I don’t think that genie is going back into the bottle,” she said.

Already preliminary findings from a new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggest that more than 34% of respondents have switched from commuting to working at home across the United States. In the Northeast, more than 40% have made the switch.

The digital infrastructure for remote work already existed, said Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a co-author of the study. “The tools people found are working pretty well,” he said.

If companies do allow more of their employees to log in from home, some may consider reducing their office footprint, which could have significant ramifications for commercial real estate.

But if the amount of space devoted to employee workstations and other functions increases, demand for space could balance out.

Lounges, cafes and other gathering spaces that sprang up to make collaborative work easier may become even more important if employees do more work from home and commute in for meetings.

At the Seattle office of B+H Architects, an informal space called the Sandbox was designed as “a place to meet and exchange ideas,” said Doug Demers, a managing principal at the firm.

The circular room has a large digital screen for sharing information and curved seating that provides a sense of enclosure.

People working from home could call in remotely, Demers said, but he thinks this kind of space will be one of the things that draw employees back to the office because it helps provide a sense of community.

“There will be a higher value around spaces where we come together,” he said. #MohnishRANotes

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How to survive the critical April-June quarter

Never was one quarter so crucial in the life of companies, especially startups who have mostly lived on the VC ventilator. Those who have battled crises in the past tell me  their biggest takeaway: One must survive this quarter to see light at the end of the tunnel

September 2008. Ashish Kashyap, former country manager of Google India, was left with only one choice. A cold-blooded one. “I had to kill to survive,” recalls Kashyap, who had started Goibibo a year back as an incubator. “It was very hard to kill,” confesses the first-generation entrepreneur, who had started to feel the heat of a global financial meltdown. Kashyap, then 33, had started building and incubating multiple lines of businesses such as social gaming, local search businesses, social media, and goibibo was one of the projects. The downturn turned Kashyap’s world upside down. Investors balked, the runway started to deplete at an alarming pace and a team of around 70 looked like an overwhelming army in a losing war. The choice was cruel but simple: Kill.

Kashyap’s ruthless streak—one that he never knew he possessed—came to the fore. First to get slain were his multiple ventures, his “babies”.  All incubator projects, except goibibo, were shut. “We doubled down on goibibo and focussed only on domestic air travel,” he recounts. What he slaughtered next was his “flamboyant” office on the posh Golf Course Road in Gurugram. The office shifted to a nondescript place in the interiors of the city. The rental fell by three-fourths. The army of employees was reduced to a wafer-thin team of eight.

The only option was survival. “At that time, failures were not celebrated,” says Kashyap, who went on to establish a successful travel portal and sold his venture to MakeMyTrip in 2016 in a deal reportedly valued at $1.8 billion. During a crisis, Kashyap underlines, nothing is important except survival and the will to do so. “To survive, one needs the courage of conviction to kill the stuff that you created to survive.”

At the same time in Bengaluru, K Vaitheeswaran, who started Fabmart is 1999, was also planning to turn ‘serial killer’. For online eCommerce brand Indiaplaza, the second venture of Vaitheeswaran, over 70 percent of business came from online loyalty programs run for large financial services companies. The rest came from online B2C retail. “The corporate business was quite profitable,” recalls the pioneer of online eCommerce in India. But there was an elephant in the room that he had conveniently ignored for long. He couldn’t anymore. The corporates used to take 60-90 days to clear their payments. “We were fast running out of cash and had to survive,” he says.

The lucrative corporate business was shut. Headcount was slashed from 75 to 30. And frugality was embraced. “In retrospect, this was a great decision because we were still surviving in 2011 when we managed to raise some venture funds,” says the entrepreneur who co-founded a dairy beverage brand Again Drinks with his Indiaplaza colleague Sandeep Thakran last October. “If I had not killed the large corporate business, we would have long gone home.”

Cut to April 2020, yesterday’s warriors have just one piece of advice for entrepreneurs caught in the pincer grasp of the COVID-19 crisis: Survive the April-June quarter. “Just think about survival,” says Kashyap, who founded wealth management platform INDwealth in June 2018. The ones who manage to last this quarter will have a high chance of winning in the long run. “Remember, Airbnb was born out of a recession,” he says, underlining that Goibibo was also born during a period of turmoil.

As gloom, doom and pessimism engulf the world, including the Indian startup ecosystem, because of the rapid spread of coronavirus, the ‘survivors’ believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. One just needs to hang on.

A crisis is also a time when the tough get going. That is what happened with Anupam Mittal, the founder of shaadi.com, who was an employee with an American company in 2001. “The dot-com bust, though heart-wrenching, was liberating for me,” says Mittal. “It made me realize that I had nothing to lose, and I decided to turn entrepreneur. A crisis also comes with opportunity.”

The first big crunch for Mittal as an entrepreneur came in September 2008, just a few days before Lehman Brothers went bust. By that time, Mittal had already built a battery of ventures—shaadi.com, Mauj Mobile, makaan.com, and a social networking company. The idea was to raise capital and build multiple ventures. A term sheet for funding was ready, the investment was about to happen, and the money was slated to land in the bank in a few days.

“The money never came,” Mittal recalls. The investor-backed out, and shaadi.com was left with a runway of three-four months.

Mittal’s first reaction was of denial. “We can get somebody else to fund us,” he tried reassuring himself. That didn’t happen. Everybody chickened out. The idea of getting funding during a crisis sounded outrageous. When reality struck, it hit like a hammer and extreme measures were taken: Layoffs, shuttering non-profitable ventures and putting a lid on cash burn. “It was painful. But we had to do it. And do it quickly,” says Mittal. Survival became the basic, and the only, instinct. “In hindsight, we were ruthless in how we approached the problem. But we had to,” Mittal tells me. Stress and survival

As the COVID-19 pandemic adds heaps of layers to the already-high-pressured life of an entrepreneur, the ones managing stress better have a better chance at short-term survival and long-term success. “This is a stress test,” avers Vikram Gupta, founder at IvyCap Ventures, a homegrown venture capital (VC) firm with a focus on the consumer, health care, enterprise, and financial technology and emerging technology sectors. The test, he lets on, will measure various things, including the founders’ ability to manage distressed employees, vendor supplies, fixed monthly payments, working capital and above all, their cash flows. The ones who are nimble in cutting costs and finding a sustainable way of doing business over the first quarter of the financial year would come off better than their competitors who may have succumbed to pressure.

The ongoing quarter will lead to the premature death of many startups with high burn rates and those hoping to raise rounds of funding in the coming months. “There will also be substantial disruptions in the business models,” says Gupta, who in March backed Bengaluru-based Internet-of-Things platform Singularity in its pre-series A funding round.

Other entrepreneurs agree. “It will test our ability to survive and rise,” says Akanksha Hazari, founder of m. Paani, a Mumbai-based local retailer digitization platform. The crisis will also test the ability to deliver exponentially more with less, be agile through adversity, and keep people secure and motivated, adds Hazari. Backed by Blume Ventures and Chiratae Ventures, m.Paani reportedly raised $5.5 million in Series A funding last December from a new set of investors.

What the crisis will also permanently change is the definition and perception of growth. “Growth at any cost is no longer sexy or viable,” says Hazari. “Path to revenue and profitability matters much more.”

For the next three months, though, what is crucial is a survival plan, rather than a business plan. Anil Joshi, founder at Unicorn India Ventures offers some quick fixes for entrepreneurs: Be frugal, go for cash deals, don’t get stuck on valuation if you’re looking for funding and stop non-critical activities. “Just focus on survival. That’s it.”

‘Growth’ narrative changes

For many years in India, startups have been built on the narrative of growth, even at the cost of unit economics. “That is already changing dramatically and it will now change even more,” says Rajan Anandan, managing director, Sequoia Capital India. Investors, he adds, would want to see if you’re solving real problems and if you have some level of traction, viable unit economics and how you will manage the next 3-18 months.

Cash flow—being able to run companies—is going to be the only priority for founders as they navigate the next few months. “Startups that don’t have a lot of runways or don't take significant action will be out of business,” warns Anandan.

The annual plan that a founder had a month back is not valid anymore. One needs to think through the scenarios, and then take action for the next several months depending on the industry one is placed in and the runway one has, says Anandan. For the seed-stage startups, there is going to be a much higher focus on businesses that have the potential for a viable economic engine.

The startups facing the maximum brunt would be in segments such as travel, hospitality, and offline retail. “Very few companies can survive two or three months of zero revenue,” he adds.

In spite of the gloom, there is hope and optimism. “Some of the best companies in the history of technology were founded in periods like this,” says Anandan. Though a challenging time, it’s also the time for entrepreneurs to really build muscle and find viable ways of building their business. He points to a few industries that would see strong tailwinds in the current scenario. Online education, online gaming, and entertainment collaboration tools, medical supplies, health, and hygiene products will see accelerated growth. Online groceries, food delivery, and online pharma companies will also see a sharp increase in penetration, especially if they can work with the states to unlock the supply chain and delivery issues. “This will be a tipping point for them,” says Anandan.

It’s also a turning point for VCs who see the crisis as an opportunity.

Scouting for Silver Linings

In Berlin, Germany, Shubhankar Bhattacharya is gearing up to fish in troubled waters. The die-hard ‘pragmatic’ investor, who relocated from Bengaluru in 2018 to join Berlin-based VC firm Fundamental as a partner, reckons uncertain times create an immense opportunity for investors who can spot and value resilient and nimble companies. Judging by the workload over the last two weeks, he tells Forbes India that the firm is excitedly bracing for an extremely intense quarter. “We are eternal optimists who see new opportunities in a market shake-up,” he says, underlining that not all VCs are equal. The contrast, interestingly, has become starker during the present crisis, as Bhattacharya explains his classification of investors.

In the first bucket are funds that are ‘deceased’ or in ‘critical condition’. They are facing a crisis due to the fact that many of the large or prominent investees have seen a dramatic reduction in revenue, market value or possibly even impending death as a result of a drastically shortened runway. Then there is another area of concern: Existing or potential LPs (Limited Partners are those who invest in VC funds) have either withdrawn commitments to invest or are limiting the VC firm's available capital, explains Bhattacharya, whose firm has invested in two Indian startups: Infraprime Logistics Technologies and LocoNav, a fleet management venture. For this group of VCs, the coronavirus has only added stress.

The second kind of investor is ‘panicked’ ones. These funds see a bleak future (at least in the near-term) for most of their portfolio companies and therefore choose to reserve additional cash to "save" their existing investments through follow-on rounds (think of this as "bailout" money). This class of investors to has nothing to do during this crisis.

Then there are investors who actually do nothing. Reason: The markets are quiet and competition isn't stirring at all. ‘Why to put your neck on the line when you can take it easy’ is the guiding philosophy for them. COVID-19 doesn’t mean much to this class. 

The last category belongs to the eternal optimists, who use the additional work-from-home time to buy value stocks, learn new skills and stay healthy. These VCs know that the markets will eventually rebound and realize that companies that are resilient and nimble will recover quickly as competition thins out. This is the time, says Bhattacharya, to spot gritty founders who are building lasting companies and back them at highly attractive valuations. The VC has a word of advice for founders looking to raise money during the COVID-19 pandemic: Identify this last category of optimistic investors. They will back you through tough times and will likely be your strongest critics and allies. “Come talk to us,” he says.

Bhattacharya is not the only one talking to founders and reassuring them of unflinching support during the crisis. Sequoia, the American VC firm also spotted the crisis early and sounded a word of caution and support to its portfolio companies.

In a guidance note sent to founders and CEOs in early March on how to ensure the health of the business, Sequoia maintained an optimistic note. “Could you turn a challenging situation into an opportunity to set yourself up for enduring success,” it asked in its note. Many of the most iconic companies were forged and shaped during difficult times. “We partnered with Cisco shortly after Black Monday in 1987. Google and PayPal soldiered through the aftermath of the dotcom bust,” the note continued, adding that Airbnb, Square, and Stripe were founded in the midst of the global financial crisis.

Asking founders to question every assumption about their business, including cash runway, fundraising, sales forecast, marketing capital spending and headcount, the address highlighted how a crisis is a blessing in disguise. “Constraints focus the mind and provide fertile ground for creativity,” it said, “This might be a time to evaluate critically whether you can do more with less and raise productivity,” the brief pointed out.

The note concludes by dishing out a priceless lesson for jittery entrepreneurs. Having weathered every business downturn for nearly 50 years, the letter addressed to the founders says we’ve learned an important lesson: Nobody ever regrets making fast and decisive adjustments to changing circumstances. In some ways, business mirrors biology. “As [Charles] Darwin surmised, those who survive are not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change,” it ended on an optimistic note.

Back in Gurugram, Kashyap knows how to survive. It's a simple trick: Blindly follow Darwin. “Adaptation is the key,” he says. Though this time his venture is well-capitalized and doesn’t have any issues of survival, the gritty entrepreneur prefers to err on the side of caution. He will question every rupee spent, cut down on any expense that is not adding value to the company or customers and won’t downsize his team of 90 but will have a hard look at the prospects of adding any new hire. “We had been running the ship very tight,” he says, adding that he has never drawn salary since the day the venture was founded in September 2018.

The most crucial thing for Kashyap is his learnings from his previous stints. This time he has not invested in marketing has brought users to the application through word of mouth and conserved every bit of cash. “The culture of being tight-fisted has worked well for us so far in this crisis.” The biggest learning that today’s entrepreneurs can cling on to, though, is: Ride out the short-term storm, and you may be in clover for life.  #MohnishRANotes

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Banning short selling in India during this crisis would worsen the underlying issue

There is no dispute that calming markets is important but a ban on short-selling helps no one; it only provides the illusion of relief, while giving a free pass to companies that should be under

India is not new to short selling. The first short-sell in history is said to have been executed by Isaac Le Maire, after exiting the Dutch East India Company. Le Maire is believed to have spread rumors that hurt the company stock. The stock price began to drop, so the Dutch East India The company did what a company today might do: Asking for a ban on short selling.

Their claim was that short-selling their stock would hurt society's most vulnerable. Dutch East India Company could hardly be considered vulnerable at the time; however, their reasoning was that widows and orphans were a large portion of stakeholders in their stock.

This is how, simplistically, many today understand short-selling. This could not be further from reality.

Hedging risk

Short-selling is an essential tool in capital markets. For instance, high-growth companies might offer convertible bonds, offering investors the chance to gain cash income, in the form of a below-market yield, and the potential of an equity upside.

However, if the convertible sheds its value, the embedded equity option also loses its value. To hedge this risk, investors can choose to simultaneously buy the convertible, and short the stock. It’s not just convertible bond buyers either. Credit investors also use equity short-selling to protect their positions in senior debt, given shares tend to fall further, and faster, than securities further up the credit stack in times of distress.

Short-selling bans hurt the market

The academic studies rendering short sell bans ineffective are aplenty. The studies posit the ill effects of short-selling include a range of deviations from free-market axioms. Richard Payne, a professor at London’s Cass Business School said that research suggests that “the real effect of these bans is simply to increase trading costs and reduce trading activity”.

One study found that short-selling bans on financial stocks actually increased the probability of both default and volatility in the targeted companies. Another 2013 working paper found the same. In the EU Commission report on short selling, IMF staff wrote, “Short selling has many benefits which help improve market quality. It augments liquidity and for every (short) seller there is a party on the other side of the transaction who is willing to pay the given price”.

According to Activist Insight’s Activist Short Selling a report published in May 2018, when it comes to types of short-sellers campaigns that are most profitable, corporate fraud, stock promotion frauds, and accounting frauds are at the top, returning from 11 percent to 13 percent in one week of the short-sell.

In the long run, fraudulent stock promotion is the most profitable, generating 41 percent in one year on average, followed by claims of a company’s product being fraudulent, which resulted in a return for a short seller of 32 percent on average (in a one-year period). Corporate fraud averaged 23 percent returns, while accounting frauds lagged with the average return of two percent. Bringing down corporate fraud essentially is a common threat in most successful short-sells.

Why ban?

Short selling is a contrarian trading axiom and in times of crises, where there is no immediate solution and immediate relief, is warranted, banning short selling provides a symbolic gesture: a signal to long-term investors who have watched some of their life savings halve in the past month. However, history has shown that these same stocks where short selling is banned increased volatility and the chances of default despite the ban on short selling. Another reason short selling is banned is that making money off other people’s misery is often perceived as unethical. The assumption of the ban is that victims of a ban are supposedly well-off white-collar elites and not the general public.

Yet short-selling’s rich history of uncovering corporate fraud is ignored and the former two narratives have taken precedence.

Conclusion

There is no dispute that calming markets is important; the current volatility is bad for thousands of viable businesses looking to raise capital, and for those who are hoping to retire soon. But a ban on short-selling helps absolutely no one, except to provide the illusion of relief while also giving a free pass to companies that should be under scrutiny. Another important fact to remember is that short-sellers exit their positions to book profits when markets fall, by buying to negate the short contract, adding a natural floor in falling markets. Short selling also helps in reducing the impact costs involved in investing, thus making markets robust. #MohnishRANotes

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Covid-19 puts Indian economy on the ventilator

A manufacturing plant of Maruti Suzuki India in Manesar, Haryana. On April 1, the carmaker reported a 47 percent drop in salesImage

The government is faced with the double task of keeping companies solvent during the lockdown and reviving consumer demand once it's over

Under usual circumstances, Maruti Suzuki India’s monthly auto sales numbers released on April 1 could have been mistaken as an April Fools’ joke. Sales were down by 47 percent over a year ago. Rival Volkswagen Passenger Cars India shipped a mere 131 cars, to register a 95 percent decline. Compare this to the last broad-based downturn in sales and Maruti had recorded its worst performance of a 20 percent decline in November 2008.

The recent decline underscores how badly demand and supply across the country have been hit because of the halt in economic activity due to the spread of coronavirus. The 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced only towards the end of the month, on March 25. “This is a very fickle situation and I estimate that 55 percent of the economy has shut down,” says Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India. As large companies like Maruti see demand falter, their suppliers who work on lower margins and tight working capital cycles may have to declare bankruptcy. While concrete numbers are awaited, anecdotal data points to a large-scale dislocation in economic activity.

Ecommerce companies are unable to ship orders across states, and consumer goods makers are struggling with shortages of packaging material and workers. It’s anybody’s guess how tepid consumer spending will be once the lockdown is lifted. Lenders fear that the large growth in retail and personal loans over the last five years is likely to result in a fresh problem of bad loans for banks and non-banking financial companies.

If India were to follow the same infection curve as Italy, Spain and the US, there is every indication that the shutdown activity could last, at least, till June. “The first half of FY21 would see a period of negative growth,” says Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist, HSBC. “There has been a huge disruption in the labor market and it will make pushing the restart button harder.”

While the government has focussed on getting food to the poor and improving liquidity in the banking system, it has so far saved its firepower for later use as it grapples with the spread of the virus. A key part of the challenge will be to make sure smaller companies that may be technically insolvent are able to restart operations once the lockdown is over. For now, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code has changed the minimum threshold for filing for bankruptcy from ₹1 lakh to ₹1 crore.

Rating agency Crisil has announced more downgrades (469) than upgrades (360) in the second half of FY20. Construction, gems and jewelry, and airlines are particularly vulnerable while the telecom, pharma, and FMCG sectors are safe.

An important clue to the government’s thinking on the solvency of companies lay in the March 24 press conference by Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman where a host of regulatory deadlines were extended. “We are watchful of the situation and if the situation warrants, we may consider suspending Section 7, 9 and 10 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code,” she said, indicating that there could be wide-ranging stoppage of proceedings so that companies can get back to work and pay their debts in due course. “It is only once the supply sidekicks in should the demand stimulus come. In the absence of that, we run the risk of any demand stimulus being inflationary,” says Sen.

As the markets wait for the coronavirus impact to become clearer, investors have taken some money off the table. In March, the Sensex fell by 26 percent while the Nifty Midcap 100 fell by 29 percent. The India VIX (Volatility Index) has soared to levels last seen during the 2008 crisis. While the speed of the fall has caught investors by surprise, there is no indication to suggest that the worst may be over as the market is unable to discount future earnings potential due to the lockdown. As the value of the credit is priced out of company valuations, those that have insufficient cash reserves and loans that are due have seen their values plummet.

“The present fiscal will be a washout in terms of growth. I can only hope that in the next fiscal, we stay on course as per earlier forecasts,” says Raamdeo Agrawal, chairman of Motilal Oswal. The International Monetary Fund estimates global growth at 1 percent in 2020.

The present fall has had a disproportionate impact on banks and financial services companies as investors price in the risk of loans going bad as well as lower interest rates that would compress their net interest margins. Private banks have also faced questions on the stickiness of their deposits, on account of the Yes Bank moratorium. Their inability to grow their liability franchise would hinder their ability to grow their loan book, thus choking credit to the economy. IndusInd Bank said it had seen an 11 percent reduction in deposits in the March quarter, while RBL Bank saw an 8 percent reduction.

For now, the duration of the lockdown is key to watch. India is still a month behind Italy, Spain and the US infection curve. High infection and death rates coupled with salary cuts and job losses could impact consumer sentiment and spending negatively even when the lockdown is lifted. The result: An extended slump for discretionary spends pointing to an end to the consumer spending cycle that has powered growth for the last decade. #MohnishRANotes

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Coronavirus and funding challenges for growth-stage startups

While some sectors are worse hit than others, it would be wise for all startups to preserve cash and be ready to re-craft business models if necessary; the post-coronavirus world will witness the rise of new market segments

Governments are placing countries under complete lockdown. Travel has been suspended temporarily. Even food delivery and e-commerce services have been put on hold for the time being. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) the outbreak has wreaked havoc on the world’s economy. Several businesses have temporarily shut down. Supply chains and sales have been impacted to a large extent across sectors. For the country's startups, it poses yet another challenge, perhaps their biggest one to date: Securing funding in the strangulated financial ecosystem.

With the growth of the economy slowing, India, home to more than 50,000 start-ups, might take at least a few months to recover from the situation. Against this backdrop, start-ups, especially those in the growth stage, are at most risk of facing funding-related headwinds amid the pandemic-ridden investment landscape. Let’s take a look at some of the most prominent challenges.

The Chinese factor

According to NASDAQ, China is the world’s largest economy when compared to other countries in terms of purchasing power parity. Before the outbreak of the virus in China, which turned into a pandemic, the country had a GDP of $27.31 trillion. When it comes to the Indian start-up ecosystem, the inflow of funds and supplies from China has been a key source of strength for new-age ventures.

In fact, leading Chinese investors had called India their most important market at TiE Global Summit 2019. It was also the year when Chinese companies had invested $3.9 billion in Indian startups. However, although China is already on a path to recovery, it is unlikely that investors from China and other south-east Asian countries will be eager to pump funds in the pandemic-hit market landscape. This can translate into a tangible blow to the funding machinery for enabling budding and growth-stage start-ups in India.

Raising more capital

While most startups in their growth stage may have already completed their first- or seed-round of funding, they will find it difficult to move on to the next rounds of capital infusion in the present scenario. So how will they keep their business running, let alone expand and scale? This is another point of worry plaguing the country’s startup community. The lockdown, if prolonged, might lead to funding timelines to be pushed even further, leading to a cash crunch in most companies that were looking to raise funds. The past couple of months have seen sales dropping for many industries. Even if the deal has already been made with the investor, it might be delayed or put on hold indefinitely or until the lockdown lifts. Moreover, raising fresh funding will take a backseat for many a venture in the current scheme of things.

Sector-wise impact

While the pandemic has affected all businesses, some sectors have taken a greater hit as compared to others. Travel and hospitality, aviation and retail seem to have majorly borne the brunt of the situation. As of March 6, approximately 585 international flights were canceled by private airlines. Even domestic travel, including buses and trains, has been halted. Restaurants and malls have been closed. With this, start-ups in the travel and hospitality sector would be finding it extremely difficult to even keep their businesses running, since there is no cash inflow from both customers as well as investors.

The way forward

While startups in most sectors have seen a slump in business, there are some for whom the pandemic has brought serendipitous opportunities. For instance, in sync with the surge in the demand for medical equipment and supplies, the healthcare and biotech sectors have seen re-energized activity over the last three months. With the country being placed under lockdown, sectors such as ed-tech, entertainment (OTT platforms such as Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon Prime) have also experienced a significant expansion of their consumer base.

Although governments across the world are endeavoring to contain the spread of the virus, it will take a few months at least before the global situation regains its erstwhile equilibrium. On the other hand, the global market is also expected to undergo major paradigm shifts once the pandemic blows over.

All startups would be wise to do two fundamental things. First, in the absence of certainty on revenues, they must preserve cash at all costs so that they can survive this phase and be ready to get going as soon as the curtain lifts. Secondly, they must be ready to go back to the drawing board to recraft their business models and maybe even the sectors they are in. One startup, for instance, has shifted gears in a matter of weeks and is getting ready to manufacture ventilators for hospitals to deal with COVID-19.

The transformations will be driven by a new awareness of the criticality of sectors such as healthcare and logistics that are currently sustaining our society under quarantine. Hence, the post-coronavirus world will witness the rise of new market segments and newer opportunities that innovators can seize to not only make the world whole again but also drive it towards a healthier future. #MohnishRANotes

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God makes an epic comeback on television

Doordarshan's 80s show, Ramayan, brought back to entertain people through the COVID-19 lockdown has garnered record-high ratings; at the same time, viewership for devotional channels has soared

The original Ramayan was popular in the 80s and 90s on Doordarshan.

First, let’s talk about divine intervention. Last week, when the government decided to bring back the original Ramayana television show on national channel Doordarshan, the movie evoked a wide range of reactions—nostalgia, disbelief, even ridicule. As God would have it, the epic made it to TV.

The Ramayan, according to the latest rating report by BARC-Nielsen for the week starting March 21, has garnered the highest-ever rating for a Hindi GEC (general entertainment channel) show since 2015. On Saturday morning and evening, 34 million and 45 million people watched it respectively; the numbers surged to 40 million and 51 million on Sunday. “Then they show was highest rated in urban and megacities,” the report, titled ‘Crisis consumption: An insight series into TV, smartphone and audiences’ point out.

As the COVID-19 crisis deepens, with an alarming surge in those who are becoming infected and losing their lives across India, devotional channels have seen a sharp 26% jump in viewership. Compare this to the ratings in the week starting March 11, when there was a 13% dip.

“It’s an epic comeback by God and devotees,” says Abraham Koshy, professor of marketing at IIM Ahmedabad. In terms of epics, he adds, there is nothing bigger than the Ramayan and Mahabharat. The top ratings for a show that was first aired in the 80s is a sad reflection on either the poor quality of the mythological programs that a present lot of makers have churned out or their failure to tell the story in a simple and charming manner. The show also, Koshy underlines, reflects the popularity that the epic still commands

Commenting on the surge in viewership of devotional channels, Koshy maintains that the findings are along expected lines. “During existential crises, especially when there is no end in sight, people will seek solace in such channels,” he says. Two things become profound during such times. The first is the exclamation that “Only God knows,” and the second is the hope that “Only God can save us.”   ​

We'll be coming back with more data analysis on TV viewership when the third week of the lockdown ends. Till then, stay safe. And God bless. #MohnishRANotes

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Indian Industry Leaders Step Up With Donations And Free Services Amid Sweeping COVID-19 Lockdown

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across India with 723 confirmed cases and seventeen deaths, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day national lockdown on Tuesday evening. All of the country’s 1.3 billion people need to stay inside their homes for three weeks beginning Wednesday. The government is taking drastic steps to stop the spread of COVID-19. India’s business community, for its part, is also taking action.

From pledging money and manufacturing might to giving away services free of charge, here’s a look at what India’s captains of industry are doing to fight the pandemic.

The country’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has announced the multi-pronged plan that involves “prevention, mitigation, and ongoing support.” His Reliance Foundation has set up India’s first dedicated COVID-19 center with 100 beds in Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai. The facility has a negative pressure room that prevents cross-contamination and all beds have a patient monitoring devices in addition to ventilators, pacemakers, and dialysis machines.

Reliance has also set up a fully equipped isolation facility in Lodhivali, Maharashtra. And it’s offering free meals to people in various cities affected by the pandemic as well as free fuel for the transportation of COVID-19 patients and people under quarantine, as per the government list.

The Reliance Foundation Hospital has also been offered as a quarantine center and Reliance Life Sciences is importing more test kits.

Meanwhile, the company’s telecom arm Jio is doubling the data limits for its existing broadband users and waiving service charges for new customers to receive basic connectivity wherever it is geographically possible to do so.

Jio Haptik Technologies, the company’s digital unit, has built a chatbot for free for the government called MyGov Corona Helpdesk that’s available on WhatsApp. The bot will answer questions about the outbreak and provide up to date information from India’s Ministry of Health.

Flagship Reliance Industries is also ramping up production of face masks to produce 100,000 each day along with other protective equipment like suits and garments for India’s healthcare workers. And its retail arm–Reliance Retail with 736 stores–will ensure that stores are open longer from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. It is looking to activate ordering from home and delivery for senior citizens.

Along similar lines, tractor tycoon Anand Mahindra, who believes that cases could rise exponentially leading to millions of deaths, has highlighted the urgent need for more ventilators and pledged to find a way for the Mahindra Group’s manufacturing facilities to be used for producing them.

He's also offered the group’s hospitality arm Mahindra Holidays’ resorts as temporary care centers for COVID-19 patients. And he has set up a fund to help support small business owners and the self-employed to get through the tough times. The fund is said to include 100% of his salary over the coming months.

Mahindra, who made these announcements in a series of tweets, also said that his projects team is willing to work with the government or the army for building temporary care centers.

Mahindra, who tweets under the twitter handle @anandmahindra has 7.5 million followers. In his latest post, he suggested that “if each of us takes care of the daily rations and essentials of at least 3 less privileged families, it will have an exponential effect, but unlike COVID, it’ll be a ‘good virus.’”

Metals and mining magnate Anil Agarwal of Vedanta Resources has announced the setting up of a $13 million fund primarily targeted at three areas: benefiting daily wage workers, employees and contract workers; preventive health care and to help communities in and around Vedanta’s plants.

“We will increase the corpus if the need arises,” the company said in a press release on Sunday. It will also provide special one-time insurance against COVID-19 for employees and their families.

Meanwhile, Vijay Shekar Sharma, founder of digital payments platform Paytm, has pledged $650,000 (Rs. 50 million) for any medical innovation related to the coronavirus. Innovators, doctors and research teams can reach Paytm at covidcure@paytm.com.

Paytm has also launched an “India Fights Corona” campaign in partnership with consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever’s hygiene brand Lifebuoy and Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Foundation. Paytm plans to distribute one million soaps and hand washes. Paytm users can contribute under the “Donation” section in the Paytm Android app or the Paytm.com site

Sridhar Vembu, the founder of cloud services firm Zoho Corp., has announced a Small Business Emergency Subscription Assistance Program. The company’s plan is to offer three months fee waiver for software that small businesses are already using. This will benefit 20,000 of its existing small business customers which have 25 or fewer employees. They will get Zoho Wallet credits which will be equivalent to three months of their bill. The small business owners can choose to use the wallet credits as he or she deems fit.

It is also providing free access to its Zoho Remotely suite of web and mobile apps for working remotely to all business until July 1, 2020. This includes a set of 11 apps–ranging from video conferencing to document management.

Edtech billionaire Byju Raveendran is offering free access to his flagship Byju's app, which offers math and science lessons suitable for children in grades 4-12 along with his Disney-BYJU’s Early Learn app that offers math and English lessons for students in 1-3 grade. The offer will last until the end of April so that school children can keep learning during the disruption caused by the outbreak.

Nitrogen, a Mumbai-based Software as a Service company, has also announced the free use of its digital platform for three months for hospitals, grocery outlets, and pharmacies. Nitrogen founders Manoj Bubna, Gautam Gurtoo and Biren Shah feel that the three industry segments could be facing unprecedented traffic because of the 21-day lockdown. They said Nitrogen can help by increasing web performance; assisting websites with handling peak traffic and strengthening security. #MohnishRANotes

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India, Day 3: How the world's largest coronavirus lockdown could impact the economy

The eastern expressway in Mumbai, India, on Friday, March 27, 2020. It is the third day of the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown, 1.3 billion people — nearly a fifth of humanity — ordered to stay inside unless vitally necessary

India's 1.3 billion people have been told to stay at home. For some, it will mean starving, and an already fragile economy may collapse

India’s economy was sputtering even before its leader announced the world’s largest coronavirus lockdown. Now the state-ordered paralysis of virtually all commerce in the country has put millions of people out of work and left many families struggling to eat.

On the third  day of the nationwide 21-day shutdown of nearly all services Wednesday, the streets of Mumbai, India’s largest metropolis — usually so busy it is known as Maximum City— were silent. Shuttered shops, empty train tracks, closed airports and idle factories all across the country were signs of the economic impact of the social distancing that the Indian government said was necessary to prevent new coronavirus infections.

India has reported 723 cases so far, but with the population density so high and the public health system so weak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the country’s 1.3 billion residents to stay inside to keep India from sliding into a disaster that could potentially dwarf what China, Italy, Spain, the United States, and other countries have faced.

But Modi’s effort to prevent the spread of the virus will lead to its own calamitous damage.

Manual laborers have no work, farmers cannot tend fields, online retailers and pharmacists have been harassed by overzealous police officers. Countless people have been running out of cash.

“The kind of devastation that is going to be faced by the bottom 50% of the workers in the informal sector is unimaginable,” said Jayati Ghosh, an economist, and professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

In some places, police officers have staked out roads and highways, stopping motorists and demanding to know why they were outside. Several states have closed their borders, forcing cargo trucks to simply park by the roadside.

Flipkart, the country’s largest online retailer, found it so difficult to move people and goods that it suspended delivery of everything except for food.

Grocery stores were allowed to remain open and in the cities, crowds swarmed and emptied the shelves. At an upscale market in New Delhi, one man stuffed his Mercedes with groceries Wednesday afternoon, jumped behind the wheel and zoomed off — wearing blue rubber dishwashing gloves and a snorkeling mask.

The National Restaurant Association of India estimated that perhaps 20% of the 7.3 million restaurant workers will permanently lose their jobs as employers go out of business. “Many companies may not survive this onslaught,” said Anurag Katriar, the association’s chief executive and the owner of a chain of upscale eateries.

Harcharan Singh, a vendor in rural Punjab state who usually goes door to door peddling everything from oranges to cauliflower, has had nothing to sell for days. The big wholesale food markets he normally relies on have all been closed.

“Our business is completely shut,” he said. “We need this money to survive, get food for our families.”

Hundreds of millions of Indians are like Singh, with little or no savings. Rickshaw drivers, for example, buy food for their families with the money they make that day. Banned from the roads, many drivers do not know how they will survive.

Economists at Barclays predicted Wednesday that the lockdown would last a month and shave 2 percentage points off India’s anemic economic growth rate. Although India is likely to escape a recession, Barclays said, such a significant slowdown would mean rising joblessness in a country where millions of young people enter the workforce every year.

Modi acknowledged the trade-offs in a televised address Tuesday night, when he first announced the nationwide lockdown.

“No doubt this lockdown will entail an economic cost for the country, but saving the life of each and every Indian is the first priority for me,” he said. “If we are not able to manage the next 21 days, then many families will be destroyed forever.”

Economists are urging the government to create a huge stimulus package to blunt the effects of the lockdown.

India’s government stores an enormous grain supply, which could quickly be distributed to the poor, said Dharmakirti Joshi, a chief economist at CRISIL, a Mumbai-based credit rating agency.

Joshi also urged direct cash payments to individuals and loans to small and medium-sized businesses. “Give a clear signal that you will help,” he said.

The Modi administration is deliberating what kind of the stimulus to offer and a plan is expected to be unveiled within days. #MohnishRANotes

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CBDT enables Instant PAN through Aadhaar in Income Tax Website

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has enabled the instant Permanent Account Number (PAN) through Aadhaar in Income Tax website. The Union Government had proposed a new system to allot PAN online on the basis of Aadhaar in Union Budget 2020. The CBDT  enabled instant PAN through aadhaar. Aadhaar has been made mandatory for applying for permanent account number with effect from July 1, 2017. Reportedly, the department, till now, has linked over 1.18 Aadhaar with its PAN database. Since last year, PAN and Aadhaar cards have been made interchangeable for income tax purposes. It is also mandatory for you to link your PAN with Aadhaar card within March 31, 2020. The move is however made in furtherance to the 2019 Budget wherein Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Aadhaar were proposed to be made interchangeable. It was proposed that the individuals without a PAN would be able to file their Income Tax returns just by quoting their Aadhaar number and vice versa. Presenting Union Budget 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that Aadhaar-based verification of taxpayers is also being introduced. For ease and convenience of taxpayers, she said a system will be launched soon, for instant online allotment of PAN on the basis of Aadhaar, without the need for filing an application form. The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said that “In the last Budget, I had introduced the interchangeability of PAN and Aadhaar for which necessary rules were already notified. In order to further ease the process of allotment of PAN, soon we will launch a system under which PAN shall be instantly allotted online on the basis of Aadhaar without any requirement for filling up of detailed application form.” This is another step in achieving the inter portability of PAN and Aadhaar.#MohnishRANotes

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3 Simple (Yet Memorable) Ways to Show Customers You Care on Valentine's Day and Beyond

When your business relationship is much more than a financial transaction, everyone wins.

Someone sent me a short video recently letting me know she is a fan of my work and provided specifics on how it has impacted her. Watching it put a big smile on my face, and gave me all the feels. It was (at least it felt like) a heartfelt gesture from someone who wants nothing in return. That feeling underscored something I've been noodling on recently, especially as we approach Valentine's Day.

There are many ways to show your customers, and others you serve, that you appreciate them, that you care for them, and that they belong with you. It is important to do this because business is about belonging. But the methods you choose to send this important message shouldn't have to be tied to a transaction.

For instance, you may show your customers some love by offering a discount or a free gift with their purchase. But I often struggle with these types of promotions because the only way that customer gets to be on the receiving end of your appreciation is by first spending more of their hard-earned money.

The "love and appreciation" now appears transactional. Your customers may feel the relationship is only relevant and important to you if they're spending money with you. And if there is a lull or break in their spending, they may soon come to think they don't even exist. Whether or not that's true, it can feel that way.

That's a shame because it diminishes, and even taints, the image of belonging--that deep and strong feeling that your company's brand sees, gets, and accepts a customer as a person. Here are three ways you can show how much you care and appreciate them, without tying it to a transaction.

1. Send love letters.

Send out handwritten notes, a heartfelt personal video, or even a nice text or direct message to your customers. In a world where people are used to being asked for something on a regular basis, it is nice to receive some token of appreciation that says: "I'm thankful for you because of you are you."

Yes, it takes time and energy to execute these gestures. But the goodwill, joy, and lasting memories you will induce in those who receive them will be worth the effort.

If you have too many customers to send individual notes to all at one time, consider doing it at a milestone moment that is specific to that customer. It will allow you to reach out and engage at varying times. Or, you can commit to sending a few notes a day, until you're able to get to everyone. If that still seems like an overwhelming task, start by sending out a group note.

2. Host customer appreciation events.

Words can go a long way, but actions up the ante to show your customers that when you say you appreciate them, it isn't just lip service.

Consider hosting a free event for customers that demonstrates how much you value them. Don't have enough in the budget to throw an event that includes all your customers at once? Consider hosting smaller events over time, and invite a few of your customers to each one.

3. Surprise customers with a gift.

Gifts that come "just because" are also a lovely way to show customers you care. Sure, it may be nice to send one on Valentine's Day, their birthday, or Christmas -- but the ones you send with no reason other then "I think you are special" are the ones that stand out in your customers' minds and hearts.

Popular online marketing coach Amy Porterfield did it a few times by offering free Starbucks coffee to her audience. She uploaded a specific amount on a tab, and all her fans had to do was go to their local Starbucks and show the special code, and they got a cup of their favorite brew on Amy. Fans loved it and posted photos of themselves with their free cup all over social media.

You don't have to wait for a specific day or occasion. What's important is to express your gratitude in a manner that demonstrates you really do care about your customers, and they don't have to buy more from you to experience your appreciation.

As a result, they will give you more of their attention, adoration, and loyalty. Because they know that their belonging with you goes much deeper than a financial transaction. #MohnishRANotes

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Want to Improve Your Team's Decision-Making Skills? Start a Journal

The best way to improve is to record your thinking process and review your outcomes.

The main job of leadership teams is to make decisions for the company. Teams that make more efficient decisions will win. It will allow them to quickly respond to issues and take advantage of opportunities. It will also expose more impactful issues that will drive strategic growth and transformation.

One of the best ways to learn how your decision-making process is affecting your outcomes is to keep a decision-making journal as a team. This captures the thinking, analysis, assumptions, and criteria you used to make decisions.  By reflecting on this later, after you know the outcomes, you can find ways to improve your process.

Here are a few things I suggest to include in your journal to capture the key insights and maximize your learning.

1. Formalize your process

First, define your decision-making process. You can't improve on something that isn't well-defined. What steps do you take to make a decision currently? If you don't have a process, just record what you do during your next decisions and use that as your working model. Then you can evaluate what worked and what didn't and make changes for the future.

For example, if you had a cost overrun because you forgot to budget for legal fees to review the contract, make sure this in on your checklist going forward.

2. Take notes on your thinking and rationale

While you're making your decisions, it is important to capture your thinking rationale, and assumptions. Did your team consider an option but then reject it? Make a note on what it was and why. I also capture all of the brainstorming notes and photos to review later.

Most people are overly optimistic by nature. By tracking estimates and actuals for time and budget estimates you create feedback that can be used to make better estimates in the future.

3. Document the options you considered but didn't take

One of the best things you can do to improve your decision-making is to generate more options. Most teams come up with two or three options and then decide. Better teams spend time coming up with more options and then spend time developing them further into novel solutions.

Capture the ideas you generated and what you toss aside and what you developed. Often times I see ideas that the team disregarded that ended up being great ideas in retrospect. A journal can help you understand what thinking leads to missing that option and how you might do it differently in the future.

4. Define the criteria you used to make your decisions

Before you begin the debate, discuss and agree on what will make the best outcome. Decide what your boundaries and priorities are for a final solution. Do you have a budget or time limit? Is quality more important than quantity? What tradeoffs are you willing to make? Determine these factors before you start.

Then, record the information in your journal and discuss how you've evaluated your options based on those factors. Later, when you review your journal, this will help you see if you missed important criteria or if you misjudged the ability to meet them.

5. Capture the data you had and where you got it

Many decisions are based on the data collected and analyzed. The challenge is that good data can be hard to come by and difficult to assess in the heat of the moment. By recording the available data and the conclusions and decisions you made from it, you capture the context at the time.

Too often I see teams look back on a decision but use their current informational context to evaluate it. This skews the evaluation and can lead a team to miss key insights. You need to assess the decision you made within the context of the information you had at the time, not the information you have now.

6. Record your assumptions and certainty levels

Many times decisions go south because the team made assumptions about what was or was not true, likely, or possible. However, if you don't capture those assumptions, you won't be able to compare them to real outcomes and learn what you can safely assume going forward.

While you can't always capture all of this data, choosing a few key decisions to document your process, thinking and data will be extremely helpful in reviewing your outcomes and evaluating your effectiveness. Teams that get this right will dramatically accelerate their learning and their results.#MohnishRANotes

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Every Business Needs a Rainy Day Fund. Here's How to Calculate Yours

Every business needs cash in the bank to weather the ups and downs. Here's how to figure out how much you need.

Business is uncertain by its very nature. If it wasn't, everyone would be an entrepreneur. It's what makes business both exciting and stressful. However, good business leaders know the risks they take and make sure they have strategies in place to mitigate downside risks.

Having the right rainy day fund to help cover shortfalls can be the difference between making it through some hard times and finding your business on life support. However, squirreling away too much cash can mean anemic growth and missed opportunities.

As a business coach who works with CEOs in many different industries and in companies of different sizes, I've learned that calculating this number is a balancing act. Here are some of the factors that you need to consider when deciding how much to squirrel away for a rainy day.

Core staff payroll

For most businesses, people are the most critical and important asset. A company with a team of A-players will outperform the industry every time. Losing these people can be disastrous for the business. You need to make sure you can cover their salaries and benefits for however long you think it might take to get back on your feet.

Non-critical staff payroll

While some staff are no longer needed if your business takes a downturn, you may not be able to cut them quickly. Make sure you have enough to give them enough notice and runway to find another position. Another option here is to put them on furlough if you think business will come back in a reasonable timeframe. I've also had clients who negotiate a partial pay package or a deferred payment arrangement.

Fixed critical expenses

Some expenses can't be reduced or cut without serious deleterious effects on the business. This includes things like rent, insurance, utilities, etc. Make sure you have enough to cover these items and avoid a painful disruption to the business.

Variable and semi-variable expenses

Things like costs-of-goods-sold will directly lower in a downturn. Other costs, like attorney fees associated with new contracts, will also decrease with slower business. Look through your chart of accounts and identify those expense items that will get cut or lowered if sales and revenues fall unexpectedly. Taking action on these items quickly can give you more runway for critical expenses.

Accounts receivable

Another thing to factor into your calculation is your current accounts receivable. For invoices that have been delivered in full and there is no work remaining, you should be able to collect on that money. If you have invoices associated with partial delivery or need-to-complete future work, you might need to factor them to some level.

Accounts payableYour accounts payable will be a big factor in how much of a cushion you need. If your business hits a few bumps and you don't have new cash to make payments, you'll need to start prioritizing quickly. Focus on critical vendors and suppliers first. And try to negotiate payment terms and a schedule sooner rather than later.

Access to outside funds

If you have access to outside funds, you might not need as big of a cushion. This could be liquid or semi-liquid assets from the owners. You can also look to debt options; however, asking for debt when things are not going well can be a very difficult and expensive option.

Cost of re-hiring

One of the best calculations you can do is to figure out the break-even time between how much you save by letting someone go in a downturn and what it will cost you to replace them when things pick back up. Often times, it's cheaper to pay someone even if you don't need them for a few months then to later go through the pain and cost of recruiting and training someone new.

Reinvestment opportunities

Sometimes I see clients that have too much tucked away. They've amassed large sums of cash out of worry for the next downturn. In the meantime, they've neglected to re-invest in their business to help it grow and prosper, and have missed key financial opportunities. Strike a balance between protecting against undesirable events and pursuing growth and scale.

Risk tolerance and stress

In the end, everyone has a unique risk profile. If keeping your emergency fund lean means you're on-edge and having sleepless nights, then put more away. Increasing your stress and anxiety will reduce your performance and hinder your ability to deal with the situation should a downturn show up.

The amount you should put away is a combination of rational logic and emotional security. However, don't just put money away and forget about it. As the business grows and evolves, so should your calculation and the balance in the account. Forgetting to do so can expose you to risks you didn't intend to take. #MohnishRANotes

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Are Your Meetings Falling Flat? Here's How to End Every One on a Strong Note

Are Your Meetings Falling Flat? Here's How to End Every One on a Strong Note

While having a good opening and sticking to an agenda is important, the best meetings have a strong finish as well.

As a coach, I spend the majority of my time facilitating meetings with senior leadership: upwards of 200 to 300 meetings a year. And over that time, I've learned a few tricks.

There are many good meeting habits. At the top of my list is having an agenda: basically a list of topics and decisions. Having a good facilitator is also a great way to boost a meeting. And there are opening conversations and ground rules as well.

However, the one thing I see most meetings get wrong is the ending. Failing to properly wrap up a meeting can be a huge mistake. Without a proper close, all of the hard work that went into your meeting will likely fizzle.

Most meetings end by people trying to cram in one more topic or by people excusing themselves to make other appointments, leaving things half-baked. Instead, take 5-10 minutes at the end of your meetings to cover these five items--you're sure to see an improvement.

1. Identify anything that wasn't covered.

It's often the case that you don't get to everything on your agenda. And if you use a parking lot (which I highly recommend), you'll have new items that need to be processed. At the end of your meeting, be sure to walk through your list of open topics and decide if they need to be on the agenda for the next meeting. You can also assign owners to work on them between meetings to keep the process going.

2. Review action items and commitments.

A good meeting has several action items and commitments. I recommend that you track them during the meeting. Either assign someone to be a scribe who can take notes or record them yourself on the wall or a whiteboard. Capturing action items and commitments is one of the keys to a great meeting.

At the end of a meeting, I like to review everyone's takeaways and next steps. This will help make sure everyone is on the same page as to who is doing exactly what and by when. I can also check my notes and make sure everything was captured. By reviewing people's commitments at the end in front of the group, you further instill a sense of ownership and accountability to the group.

3. Confirm decisions and next steps.

Every meeting has at least a handful of decisions. These can be both big and small. The challenge is to have every decision lead to both an action plan and a communications plan. Too often, teams make decisions but then don't act on them or fail to tell the people who are directly affected.

At the end of the meeting, walk through the decisions that have been made and make sure there is an owner and an action plan for each. Also, confirm who else needs to be notified about the decision that's been made. A lot of organizational drama is caused by decisions being made by one group and another group not being informed.

4. Discuss changes and improvements.

One of the habits of highly effective organizations is developing a culture of continuous improvement. They know they can be better, and they make a focused effort to constantly find ways of improving.

End your meetings with a quick review of what went well in the meeting and what didn't. Bake in the things that have proved effective for the team so you don't lose that value. And then identify one or two things you want to do differently next time. These small improvements will add up over time.

5. Confirm the date and time of the next meeting.

Finally, make sure the next meeting is on the books. Don't leave the meeting hoping someone will figure out the schedule later. While you have people in the room, open up the calendars and find the next date. Better yet, if this is a regular meeting, establish a standing date and time so that it's in the calendars going forward automatically.

Meeting habits are key to organizational effectiveness and a core part of any business. And while many people complain of being in too many meetings, the truth is that they are in too many bad meetings. #MohnishRANotes

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Want to Win the Battle Against Your Competition? Create a First-Class War Room

Like a great general, a great CEO knows that having the right information at the right time is key to success.

While military analogies have limits in business--and are often more cliché than practical--one that I find highly effective is the idea of a war room. A war room is a space where information is gathered and displayed where your team can meet to discuss and decide on strategies and objectives. Done well, a war room can be a powerful tool in creating focus and alignment in your team.

As a strategic coach, I'm always looking for an edge that I can give my clients. And while more ideas and information can help, more often than not, it's about creating deeper insights and making a better decision with the information you already have.

The problem is that information can be buried in binders and folders or on hard drives (or the cloud these days) and inaccessible to the team. Making this information accessible and placing it in a clear view allows it to be used more effectively.

This is what a war room does so well. It takes the key information, data, and plans that a team has developed and organizes it in a structured and visual way so that it's at the team's fingertips. Here are five aspects of a great war room.

1) Close to the action

The best war rooms are located in a central place close to where the work is being done. It should be easy to get to and easy to access. High-performance teams meet daily to review updates and action plans. If your space is too far away to easily access, you won't establish a routine that will drive the pace.

Your war room need not be physical. Several teams that I work with our virtual, with leadership located in disparate parts of the world. A virtual war room creates common data sets, meeting tools, reports, and documents that give everyone on the team the right information in the right format.

2) Common ground

It's important that your war room be accessible to everyone at all times. Don't put it in the CEO's office or the main conference room if these are closed or occupied during the day. You want your war room to be open and available to everyone on the leadership team at all times so they can access information, update plans and reports, and have a space to think about strategy and long-term goals.

3) Information radiators

Having spent almost two decades in Lean/Agile software development, I've borrowed many ideas and concepts and applied them to my business coaching strategy. One of the core ideas that I've borrowed is an information radiator. By organizing information and insights in large format charts, diagrams, and models and putting them on the wall, you create visual access to the critical resources the team needs to plan and make better decisions.

4) Meeting space, not working space

It's important to set up your war room as an ideal place to meet. Generally, war room meetings are short and focused. You need enough space for everyone on the team to be in the room and still see everyone and everything on the walls. I tend to like open spaces where people stand or sit in chairs that can be quickly moved around, rather than conference tables.

Don't encourage people to work in the war room. This allows other people to come in and quickly access the information they need without disrupting others. Quick meetings and work sessions are fine, but for focused work, use another space.

5) Invite change and updates

Everything in the war room should be easy to update and change. I like stickies on walls that can be edited, replaced, moved and reorganized as needed. Don't get attached to any particular setup or format. The key to a good war room is the ability to adapt quickly to changing situations and strategies. Whiteboard and glass walls create great surfaces where diagrams, sheets, notes, and documents quickly posted and edited.

In today's rapidly changing business world, having the right tools and information at your fingertips is key. With the right information in the right format, teams will be able to gain insights and quickly execute strategic moves that will win in their market. #MohnishRANotes

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