Managing businesses in the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic

First Published by IIM Calcutta Innovation Park in http://www.iimcip.org/resource/entrepreneur-speaks-7/

We are going through unprecedented times, where the COVID-19 virus has brought our economy, our businesses and our way of life down to our knees. It has disrupted supply chains, demolished demand in short term, evaporated jobs, especially blue collared jobs, decimated balance sheets and fundamentally changed how employees work and interact.

However, it has also provided multiple opportunities. It has provided the opportunity to become significantly more efficient by adopting techniques such as WFH (Work From Home) in a more permanent bases, and its collateral benefit of Reduced Travel as the acceptability of closing deals through video conferencing has gone up. It would not only reduce cost of doing business, but also save commute time and reduce carbon footprint of businesses. Which also means that there will be a long-term effect on airlines as they would face a reduced demand even after the pandemic is over.

The question really is, how do businesses and startups manage this pandemic. TO being with, each business should form a coordinating body or what I would prefer to call a War room that will address immediate challenges such as employee morale, cash flow management, customer/ client outreach and ensuring business continuity. It would also work out the modalities for post lockdown working protocols. No company should immediately get all its employees coming to office, especially critical employees, since if they get infected, it will impact the company significantly. Rostering systems need to be worked out so that the same batch of employees come at the same time and do not mix up with another batch of employees.

The war room would then need to address near-term challenges, including Cash management, future lockdowns, safe environment protocol etc. It will also have to work out how the organization returns back to BAU (Business as Usual) and also, what will the new BAU look like? If we have been able to successfully work from home, do we still need all employees to come to office or can we reduce office space requirement and get some people to continue to work from home?

The war room would also have to therefore envision new processes for the new BAU and also work out new business models as opportunities that the disruption will present. It would also look at restructuring the capital structure and perhaps retire some of the high cost debt and borrow from the current market that is offering a much lower cost debt. It should also look at possibility of buying out other businesses that are available cheap now and also look at acquiring technologies that are now available cheap.

And lastly, the war room should have an investor outreach program to ensure that your investors are on-board with the fast pace of changes that your company will go through.

This is an excellent opportunity or organizations to emerge as more competitive entities that will go out and win more market segments and more market share.

Economic impact of Coronavirus - করোনায় না হলেও আর্থিক দুরবস্থায় মৃত্যু বাড়বে দেশে, জানাচ্ছেন ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য

First published in https://prohor.in/interview-of-dr-jaijit-bhattacharya-on-indian-economy/

সেন্টার ফর ডিজিটাল ইকনমি পলিসি রিসার্চ’-এর প্রেসিডেন্ট তিনি। দেশজুড়ে লকডাউনের এই পরিস্থিতিতে আর সকলের মতোই চিন্তিত। কী ভবিষ্যৎ রয়েছে আমাদের সামনে? দেশের অর্থনীতি কি ঘুরে দাঁড়াতে পারবে? নাকি বাড়বে আরও দুর্দশা? আমেরিকা-চিন সম্পর্ক নিয়েই বা কী ভাবছেন? নিজের চিন্তা ও মতামত জানালেন ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য। শুনল প্রহর…

দেশ তথা পৃথিবীব্যাপী করোনা সংক্রমণের জেরে সবকিছু লকড ডাউন। অর্থনীতি ও মানুষের জীবনের উপর এর প্রভাব সম্পর্কে কী বলবেন?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : প্রথমত, আমার ধারণা অনুযায়ী অন্তত তিন মাস বড়ো বড়ো কোম্পানিগুলিকে কাজ না করিয়ে বেতন দিতে হবে, অর্থাৎ বছরের ১/৩ ভাগে কোনো উৎপাদন না থাকলেও ব্যয় থাকবে। এই সময় চুক্তিভিত্তিক শ্রমিক কর্মচারীদের বেতন দেওয়ার সামর্থ্য হয়তো কোম্পানিগুলির থাকবে না। ফলে বিপুল সংখ্যক মানুষ, যারা অর্থনৈতিক ভাবে দুর্দশাগ্রস্ত, তাদের আয় বন্ধ হয়ে যাবে। ফলে ভাইরাস সংক্রমণে না হলেও আর্থিক দুরবস্থায় বেশ কিছু মৃত্যু হবে।

দ্বিতীয়ত, RBI হয়তো কিছু ঋণ পরিশোধের সময়সীমা পিছিয়ে দিয়েছে, কিন্তু তার সুযোগ ছোটো শিল্পগুলির কাছে আসবে না। দেরিতে হলেও ঋণ শোধ তো করতেই হবে, উৎপাদন না হলে তখন অসুবিধায় পড়বে সংস্থাগুলি।
তৃতীয়ত, ১৯১৮ সালের স্প্যানিশ ফ্লু-র সময় মানুষ খাবার ঠিকমতো পায়নি, এখন হয়তো খাবার আগের তুলনায় পর্যাপ্ত, কিন্তু জনসংখ্যাও বেড়ে গেছে।
তবে, লকডাউনের বিকল্প নেই, কারণ তা না হলে ভাইরাস সংক্রমণে গুণোত্তর প্রগতিতে মানুষের মৃত্যু হবে।

আমরা দেখছি, দিল্লিতে অসংগঠিত শ্রমিকেরা কীভাবে বাড়ি ফিরতে চাইছেন, শহর থেকে গ্রামে, এ-প্রসঙ্গে কিছু বলবেন?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : গ্রামগুলি এখন জনবহুল, যারা ফিরছে তারা পর্যাপ্ত খাবার পাবে কিনা সন্দেহ। আর যারা ঘরে ফিরছে, শুধু দিল্লি না, ভারতের সমস্ত জায়গা থেকে, তারা আবার লকডাউন উঠলেই কর্মক্ষেত্রে ফিরবেন না বলেই মনে হয়। ফলে অর্থনীতি বেশ কিছুদিন স্থগিত হয়ে থাকবে। আর গ্রামে যদি ভাইরাস সংক্রমণ হয় চাষবাসে তার প্রভাব পড়বে, ফলে পরিস্থিতি আরো খারাপ হবে। ১৯১৮-তে স্প্যানিশ ফ্লুতে ১৪ মিলিয়ন মানুষ মারা গেছিলেন, তা-ও তখন জনসংখ্যা এখনকার ১/৭ অংশ ছিল। এই মানুষেরা ঘরে ফিরলে লকডাউনের সময়সীমা বাড়ানো দরকার। অর্থনীতি আর কতটা সহ্য করতে পারবে সে সম্পর্কে আমি সন্দিহান। গরম পড়লে ভাইরাস নিষ্ক্রিয় হবে কিনা জানি না, নয়তো দেশ বড় আর্থিক সমস্যার সম্মুখীন হবে।

আরও পড়ুন
লকডাউন পেরোলে কাজ হারাতে পারেন ভারতের ১৩ কোটি মানুষ!

আপনার মতে করোনা পরবর্তী সময়ে কী পরিবর্তন আসতে পারে?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : অটোমেশনের চাহিদা বাড়তে পারে, মানে আমাদের কাজগুলি যন্ত্রনির্ভর হয়ে পড়তে পারে আরো বেশি মাত্রায়। এমনকি ঘরের কাজেও যন্ত্রমানব ব্যবহার হতে পারে। এই সময় এটা প্রমাণিত যে অনেক কাজ আমরা নিজেরাই করে নিতে পারি, কম্পানিগুলি ওয়র্ক ফ্রম হোম নীতিতেই প্রচুর কাজ করিয়ে নিতে পারে, সেক্ষেত্রে বড় অফিস এবং অফিস সংক্রান্ত প্রচুর নিয়োগ না করলেও চলে। এভাবে সকলে ভাবলে আবার ওই আর্থিক ভাবে দুর্বল শ্রেণীর উপরেই কোপ এসে পড়ে। আসলে ভারতে তরুণ জনসংখ্যা কোরিয়া, চিনের মতই বেশি, কিন্তু ওই দেশগুলির মত শিক্ষার প্রসার নেই। যদি থাকত তাহলে আমরা সারা পৃথিবীর যন্ত্রনির্ভরতার সুযোগ নিতে পারতাম।

তবে কি কৃষিভিত্তিক হওয়ার দরুণ ভারতীয় অর্থনীতি আরো অসুবিধায় পড়বে?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : একটি দেশ বিশ্ব অর্থনীতিতে শক্তিশালী হিসাবে চিহ্নিত হয় তার প্রযুক্তি, আবিষ্কার ইত্যাদির ক্ষমতা অনুযায়ী। ভারতে মানব সম্পদের প্রতি কোনো গুরুত্বই আরোপ করা হয়নি, না সরকার শিক্ষার ব্যবস্থা করেছে, না বেসরকারি ক্ষেত্রকে সুযোগ দিয়েছে, এর ফল যা হওয়ার তাই হয়েছে, ভারত পিছিয়ে পড়েছে প্রযুক্তি, গবেষণা ও আবিষ্কারের ক্ষেত্রে। জাপান যেভাবে তার মানবসম্পদকে ব্যবহার করেছে তা শিক্ষণীয়। তবে ভারতে যেমন সুন্দর ভাবে লক ডাউনের মত বিশাল আদেশ পালন করানো গেছে, চিনে তা করানো যায়নি। কাজেই এ-কথা বলা যেতেই পারে, ভারতীয় মানবসম্পদের প্রচুর সম্ভাবনা আছে, তাদের তৈরি করে সুযোগ দিতে হবে।

আরও পড়ুন
দারিদ্র্যের সম্মুখীন হতে পারেন ১১ মিলিয়ন মানুষ, ওয়ার্ল্ড ব্যাঙ্কের রিপোর্টে চাঞ্চল্য

ভারতীয় সরকারের কাজ সম্পর্কে কী বলবেন?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : খুব সুন্দর ভাবে ধাপে ধাপে লক ডাউনের দিকে এগিয়েছে। থালা বাজানোর ফলে যে মানুষটি টিভি, রেডিও কখনও দেখেনি সেও করোনা সম্পর্কে জানতে পেরেছে, তৈরি হতে পেরেছে। ভারতের কোনো লুকোছাপা নেই করোনা মোকাবিলায়।

করোনা পরবর্তী সময়ে কি চিন মহাশক্তি হতে যাচ্ছে?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : চিন আগেও উৎপাদনের ভরকেন্দ্র ছিল, ভবিষ্যতেও থাকবে। ভিয়েতনাম, ফিলিপিন্স, ইন্দোনেশিয়া, ইতালি-এরা আগেও চিন-নির্ভর ছিল, এখনও তাই। যোগান শৃঙ্খল, সুবিধাজনক কর কাঠামো, সুলভ উৎপাদন ক্ষেত্র ও মানব সম্পদ যে দেশে থাকবে সে-ই ভাল উৎপাদক হতে পারে। এগুলি সব চিনের আছে, ভারতের থাকলে সে-ও পারবে। তবে আগামী দশকের মধ্যে চিনকে সরিয়ে ইন্দোনেশিয়া, ফিলিপিন্স ও ভিয়েতনাম উৎপাদন ক্ষেত্রে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ জায়গা নেবে।

আরও পড়ুন
পেশায় শ্রমিক, মাটি কাটছেন ভরদুপুরে, বিকল্প জীবিকার আর্জি ভাইরাল ‘চা-কাকু’র

ইউ এস-চিন সম্পর্ক নিয়ে কিছু বলবেন?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : এদের সম্পর্ক কখনওই খুব ভালো নয়। অনেক ধরণের জটিল রাজনীতি রয়েছে এর মধ্যে। এককথায়। চিনকে আমেরিকার ফ্রাঙ্কেনস্টাইন বলা যায়। দেশদুটি অর্থনৈতিক এক প্রকার যুদ্ধে রত।

আমাদের শেষ প্রশ্ন, আমরা দেখেছি মানুষ বারবার ঘুরে দাঁড়িয়েছে, এই অতিমারীর পরেও কি দাঁড়াবে? আপনার কী মনে হয়?

ডঃ জয়জিৎ ভট্টাচার্য : হ্যাঁ, দাঁড়াবে তো নিশ্চয়ই, তবে কীভাবে, তা কঠিন প্রশ্ন। আবার অন্য অতিমারী আসবে কিনা, কীভাবে আসবে সবটাই অনিশ্চিত। আমরা যে ভাবে সমস্ত বন্য পশুপ্রাণীকে পণ্যজাত করেছিলাম তা নিয়ে ভাবার সময় এসেছে, পুরোনো অভ্যাস, সুসংস্কারগুলি নিয়ে ভেবে প্রয়োজনানুযায়ী ফিরিয়ে আনার সময় হয়েছে বোধহয়।

Policy interventions for ushering the Future of Work

First published in ET Government on March 18, 2020
https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/policy-interventions-for-ushering-the-future-of-work/74684063

Covid-19, popularly referred to as novel Coronavirus, is having deep unintended impact on changing how we live and how we work. Concepts of “social distancing” and “flattening the curve” have quickly become part of lingua franca as well as influencing how we are reorganizing work, albeit with the view that this is going to be a temporary arrangement. This has led to “WFH” or Work from Home coming back in fashion with a vengeance, after the epic dalliance with the concept by companies ranging from HP to Yahoo, with Yahoo famously abandoning the WFH concept in 2013, in a bombshell announcement by their then CEO, Marissa Mayer.

However, WFH has clearly come of age, with high bandwidth communication infrastructure becoming ubiquitous and affordable. Most homes of white collared workers in the metros have sufficient broadband to support acceptable quality on-demand video-conferencing on regular general-purpose laptops, PC’s and smartphones. WFH has tremendous potential to reduce traffic, thus significantly reducing air pollution and in general, improving work-life balance by cutting down on travel. It would therefore, also contribute to increasing national productivity by using the commute time more productively. In fact, in the age-old adage that there is a competition between communication and transportation, we could almost say that communication is winning, as it would substantially reduce work-related transportation. This is only going to become even more true, with the impending rollout of 5G connectivity.

However, for this change to make a permanent impact and not be ephemeral, there are substantial regulatory and policy issues that would need to be aligned. To begin with, one has to define liabilities more aggressively. What if there is a broadband outage at a tech worker’s home, that leads to failure of a mission critical system that was being monitored by the tech worker, that in turn leads to massive losses or death? Who would bear the liability of such an event? Or for even simpler cases where an organization ends up losing a deal because a key senior executive could not participate in a video conferencing due to broadband outage? What should be the Service Level Agreements and what should be the regulatory framework that would enable assurance to organizations whose key workers move to a WFH regime?

How does an organization manage confidentiality clauses and data protection clauses when the data is reaching to workers who are working from outside the premises of the company? There are of course security tools to ensure that the data cannot be taken away from the company issued laptops and devices, but what if the data is simply taken as pictures from the screen of the laptop and then an OCR is run on top of such pictures? How does an organization ensure that its employees are adhering to the contracts that the organization has signed up to. What would be the safe harbor provisions that an organization can enjoy under such situations where the employee, outside the premises of the organization, indulges in data related malpractices?

This would also imply that many of the existing contracts with customers and clients would need to undergo significant changes, especially on the data related clauses, where data would need to travel outside the office premises, to the homes of designated workers, if we need to transition to a WFH economy.

Both organizations and government would need to roll out incentives to support WFH, which not only saves precious dollars for the organization by reducing office real estate requirements, but also reduces national costs by increasing the use of existing assets (worker’s home), while reducing usage of precious imported petroleum. Hence, new frameworks need to be evolved where organizations compensate the worker for working from home and for additional expenses at home such as electricity usage, telecom usage, office supplies etc. It should be ensured that such compensation does not attract any kind of taxes, direct or indirect. It would also imply, that definition of residential zones would need to be fine-tuned to ensure that such work practices are not construed to be in violation of the local government’s zoning regulations.

WFH would lead to creation of new types of local industries that support WFH, such as services for local high-speed printers, local meeting rooms, services for delivering samples/ printouts from one WFH worker to another WFH worker etc. HR departments would need to evolve to manage the complexities arising out of such WFH practices. For example, how would HR notice abuse of power by managers? How would client interactions happen?

We have indeed been rapidly pushed into a bold new world by the advent of the unwelcome pandemic. We would need to now quickly work out the mechanisms to make this regime work in a much more stable and sustainable manner and the government regulatory framework and policies would either make India a leader in WFH or would leave the country gasping to catch up with the rest of the world.

Caselet of India Vision 2035: Agriculture

Harjinder Kaur came from a family of farmers but was now the only one among her extended family to still do farming. She had done her masters in agriculture and was skilled in using the government and private sector systems and technologies to manage over a thousand acres of farmland. Ofcourse, only a small part of the thousand acres was her own, the rest is what she had contracted through the model contract act through the online government portal. Her family and other farmers had given their land to Harjinder for farming. 

Harjinder started her day by checking on the exception alerts coming from the array of sensors in her farm and from the cattle and chickens that she was rearing. She also got the analysis of her farm from the images taken from the Agricultural Drone company that was contracted by the government to take periodic check on farms in Punjab, which also provided early warning to the government on spread of pests and animal diseases. 

Harjinder also had to take a call on what to plant in a new part of her farm. She quickly checked the prices of various agricultural crops in the futures market, then checked on the database of how much of each agricultural crop has been already planted in the country and globally and then took advice from the AI system to decide what crop to plant so as to get the best returns. As she decided on her planting, she saw the autonomic tractor humming at a distance, ensuring that every inch of the farm is utilized by leveraging GPS and other data, while her micro-irrigation system that was hooked on to the precision farming system, continued to provide just the right amount of water to every part of her farm. The farm equipment came to her from the equipment-sharing company that was hooked to a government system that provide the backend to all such systems. And then she got an alarm from the systems that a tiny part of her farm that was producing cotton, has just been infected by pink ball worm. She took immediate action to contain the situation using the correct pesticides, so that only a small part of her crops got exposed to pesticides.

She ended her day thanking the background systems that helped her orchestrate her farming in a seamless manner. 

Caselet of India Vision 2035: Education

Meenakshi was doing well in 7th grade in her school but she had developed a sudden interest in hyperbolic geometry. While her robotic teacher was good in handling regular queries in the class, it was not programmed to provide special interest classes as that would disturb the rest of the class. The government had taken an early decision to develop silicone based robotic teachers that looked very real to children, driven by AI, to aide in teaching as clearly, it was impossible to churn out high quality teachers for the 200 million students of the country. In addition, there was a challenge to provide high quality higher education, vocational education and continuing education to a large population, that was hungry for education in a world where skills were getting outdated fast.

However, in this case, Meenakshi needed support from an expert in hyperbolic geometry, who could guide her to write her research paper on the ideas that she had developed. The National Education System, which powered the robotic teachers, automatically assigned her to Prof. Mithi in Itanagar, a world-renowned scientist in hyperbolic geometry. Prof. Mithi has been mentoring a few students who came from India, Egypt and Uzbekistan.  

In a few months, Meenakshi’s research paper on hyberbolic geometry was published in the National Online Open Journal as well as in the renowned Journal of Geometrical Calculations. Her research could be accessed freely by other students in India.

Caselet of India Vision 2035: Healthcare

Jamuna Tudu was wearing the bio-sensor vest as she was overseeing her agricultural patch in Armo in Jharkhand. Jamuna was expecting and so the monitoring vest given to her by the PHC at Bermo. She was thinking about names to keep for the baby when she got a call from the Centralized Health Monitoring System that informed her that her vitals indicated she will be delivering soon and should move to the PHC. Her nominated ASHA worker and family also received a similar call, thanks to the AI system that was monitoring over 100 m expectant mothers and senior citizens on a continuous real-time basis, over a complex 7G mobile and satellite system. By the time she reached the local PHC, she received request for consent for the PHC doctors to access her medical records that were stored in the national health system. Her verbal consent over the phone ensured that the PHC was ready with all the medical information required to aid her in her delivery. It turned out that Jamuna had a special condition for which the Medical AI system recommended an expert opinion from Dr. Aleem, who was based out of Dhaka. 

Dr. Aleem specialized in the genotypes of the sub-population that Jamuna came from. Thanks to the trans-national medical interchange system built, it took a few minutes for Dr. Aleem to get into the records of Jamuna to provide his expert opinion on the medical situation. It turned out that Dr. Aleem would have to do an immediate procedure on Jamuna, which he immediately initiated using the remote robotic systems that allowed him to control the robotic surgeon at the PHC at Bermo. Thanks to the IT standards that have been agreed upon between the south Asian countries, it was seamless for Dr. Aleem to do the remote robotic procedure from Dhaka. 

The day ended with Jamuna being a proud mother of a healthy baby. 

Needless to say, the local school systems were automatically informed of a child who will join their school in four years’ time. In the meantime, Jamuna continued to get regular reminders for her child’s inoculation from the Central health System as part of the Cognitive Nation initiative.

Caselet of India Vision 2035: Blue Collared worker

Hargovind had taken up vocational training early in his career and took pride in being a blue-collared worked. He especially liked cleaning the drains of Delhi. So on new year day in 2035, he got up late to go for work and the city systems informed him of potential drain clogs detected. He did a quick visual inspection of the drains in the NDMC area using the built-in cameras and notices that the revelers of previous night and thrown in paper plates and paper spoons into the drains, with possibility of clogging them. Hargovind eased himself into his chair and remotely activated the mechanical cleaning “snake” that would slither into the drains and start cleaning up the material that would clog them. As the “mechanical snake” pumped out the bio-degradable clogging material from the drains, it got ferried straight into the micro-STP nearby which would convert the material into cooking gas for the nearby restaurants and into fertilizers for the NDMC maintained parks.

Hargovind thanked the prescient government for setting up the technical orchestration that helped cameras, sensors, robots and communication technologies to help him accomplish his job without getting into the drain as his predecessors would do.