SNAPSHOTS OF LIFE IN QUARANTINE

PRICE ` 200 JULY 3, 2020

How Covid-19 compelled Delhivery, along PUSHING with a clutch of PLUS other startups, to evolve the business HOW CSR THE PIVOT BECAME model, without CORPORATE abandoning COVID BUTTON the core RESPONSIBILITY THE COMING From left: DEFAULT Sandeep Barasia DELUGE Mohit Tandon Suraj Saharan Sahil Barua MUTUAL Ajith Pai FUNDS’ NEW Kapil Bharati PARADIGM

www.forbesindia.com Welcome to the

I N DI A

Digital Edition A pivot during Covid-19 could well start out as survival gambit but end up as a huge opportunity Letter From The Editor

Dribble and Dunk

ook for the word ‘pivot’ in dictionaries, and good, and perhaps unique, example of this is Delhivery, you’ll find at least a couple of meanings. For which has over the past decade evolved into a logistics instance, Merriam-Webster’s first definition service provider. Now Covid-19 has opened an opportunity L is ‘a shaft or a pin on which something turns’. that it had begun with back in 2011: Hyperlocal delivery, Or, as the Cambridge Dictionary puts it: “A fixed point a pivot related to Delhivery’s core of transportation and supporting something that turns or balances.” Merriam- warehousing. In April, the company says it delivered over Webster also defines the action of ‘pivoting’: “The action 2.5 million orders of medicine and 10,000 tonnes of grain. in basketball of stepping with one foot while keeping Sahil Barua, one of Delhivery’s seven founders, tells Rajiv the other foot at its point of contact with the floor.” Singh who penned this fortnight’s cover story that, by Pivot, as a verb in the Cambridge Dictionary, also means June, Delhivery was doing “pre-lockdown volumes”. “to change your opinions, statements, decisions, etc so As Singh writes, pivots usually happen when startups that they are different to what they were before”. realise there’s no market for its product or service. It’s rare These various definitions have their similarities and that businesses have pivoted because of external factors. their nuances. The common factor to all is a ‘turn’ or a A pivot during Covid-19 could well start out as survival ‘change’. The subtle difference is that the former can gambit but end up as a huge opportunity that wouldn’t happen only as long there is fixed point of support, have been a gleam in the founders’ eyes pre-pandemic. which could be a shaft or, on the basketball court, one Nothing of course—and surely not a pandemic— foot on the floor. Pivot as a change, however, doesn’t can save a business that’s sucked in huge money, pay much attention to the core point of support, and belatedly realised it’s going nowhere. Covid-19 going in a direction different from the one before. then may be just an excuse to pivot, and not driven Startup pivots have been celebrated in case study books. by core competence and market dynamics. Also, the 3 YouTube, for instance, was never meant to be about video business needs to be viable long after the pandemic streaming; it actually started out as dating service, allowing has passed. For more such nuances, Singh’s cover users to upload short videos of themselves. The company story ‘Ready, Set, Pivot’ on page 28 is a must-read. that Google went on to acquire for $65 billion may have As India’s citizens set out to reclaim livelihoods, come a long way, but look back and you’d realise that movement across state and international borders YouTube hasn’t veered from its core—which is video. is inevitable. Which also means quarantine is here That’s what a clutch of Indian startups is counting on to stay till we bid adieu to the virus. So what is it during the disruption triggered by Covid-19. Disruption like to be locked up for a couple of weeks within may be a much overused and abused word, but it may be four walls? As Naini Thaker and Madhu Kapparath apt for the transformation many of these business models found out after capturing some vivid moments of the are undergoing—an evolution that takes the company in quarantined, life can go on and splendid isolation can a different direction but one that’s related to the core. A be a thing. Don’t miss the photo feature on page 58.

Stories to look out for Brian Carvalho Editor, Forbes India

[email protected]

Best,

Akash Gupta and Rashi Agarwal of e-bike manufacturing startup Zypp have pivoted to hyperlocal grocery delivery; life under quarantine in photos

july 3, 2020 • forbes india july 3, 2020 ☛ Volume 12 O n Issue 14 T h e Contents Cover

Pg. 28

4

Team Clover realised end consumers G et, Set, Pivot demanded a greater choice in the wake of the coronavirus. So, the portfolio of How Covid-19 has forced a clutch of startups produce handled by the startup is now to move away from its core, or to add to it nearly double compared to pre-Covid days

FEATURES Pg. 8 38 • The New MF Paradigm Rsr e ta ting India Why the pandemic-induced volatility is a wake-up call to 22 • ‘Thturee Fu Lies In relook at portfolios Blended Learning’ HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on building digital 44 • ‘ I Don’t Expect A classrooms during Covid-19 Protracted Recession For India’ 24 • Seeding Change CII President Uday Kotak says the country must get its A nationwide market for investment mindset back farmers is a far way off without infrastructure and storage support 48 • Corporate Covid Responsibility 36 • Th e Coming Companies are channelising Default Deluge much of their CSR money Covid-19 could trigger a 3x rise towards the pandemic, leaving in defaults, says credit scoring other social causes scrambling to stay afloat platform CreditVidya Kylie Jenner tops Forbes's Celebrity 100 List this year

forbes india • july 3, 2020 Pg. 24 Pg. 44

Farmer Sambhaji Jaid latched on to an offer from Farmpal Veteran banker Uday Kotak warns that banks will see the most pain

52 • Da vids Vs Goliaths 73 • I ntELLigence Agents Companies across sizes and Pg. 58 ASAPP’s software trains sectors are tapping into the customer-service reps to demand for hand sanitisers, be better humans but survival won't be easy 76 • Opt imism Rules 55 • Sw eeTEned Pill? Scottish money manager Homeopathy medicines are Baillie Gifford didn’t see the being mass distributed as pandemic coming, but here’s ‘preventives’ for Covid-19 how he turned life perfect sans any evidence under lockdown

58 • S pLEndid leif Isolation 79 • ‘ I’m Happy I’m Snapshots of life in quarantine Going Digital; It’s The 5 in the midst of a pandemic Future’ Shoojit Sircar talks about Kamlesh Murjani is happy to meet his family after days in quarantine adapting to new situations Er nte prise 65 • Seep d-Dialling Change A flurry of investments in RIL’s Jio Platforms means Pg. 48 Pg. 79 the pace of evolution for all players will rise multi-fold

68 • A Bloomberg For Green Data Blue Sky Analytics processes data that can be used to help deal with situations arising out of climate change

Cr oss Border 70 • The Man Getting America Back On Track Private equity billionaire Wes Edens is betting $9 billion that America’s transportation future is passenger rail CSR money is being used for Covid-related causes Shoojit Sircar wants to move on to his next film

rearsgul ● 8/Leaderboard ● 82/ Thoughts

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The Need for More Testing Can Realtors Slash Prices? ‘Consider Cash Transfers’ Higher positivity rates in High cost of land and labour, Professor Santosh Mehrotra on certain cities point to the need for and steep loan rates will put India’s high unemployment rate, and a more inclusive approach P/10 developers in a spot P/12 how to tackle it in the future P/15

rejigging outlays Low Margins, Lower Demand Industries with slender margins must move quickly on reducing their cost structures to reflect decreased demand s

e were 91 and 92 percent of revenues g ma

I respectively in the last 12 months. Airlines, restaurants, malls, cinemas and hotels have already gotten rid of via Getty s the low hanging fruit—employee costs. ime T Salaries have been cut and some staff an t

s laid off. The next stage promises to

indu be messier as they look to reduce a H larger component of fixed costs. For a 8 restaurant and stores in malls, it means negotiating with landlords to bring down rentals. Airlines must decide

Sanchit Khanna / Sanchit whether to return planes to lessors or negotiate with airport operators to reduce parking fees. “Several businesses are looking to invoke force majeure in re-negotiating their terms. This is likely to attract multiple Restaurants are taking a hard look at their fixed costs as they prepare to operate at a lower litigation in various sectors in the next capacity in the post-Covid world few months,” says Zulfiquar Memon, In early June, Twitter was at their fixed costs. Most are grappling managing partner at MZM Legal. abuzz with news that at least with the new reality of operating at For now, markets continue to price 10 restaurants in Delhi’s tony a far lower capacity on account of these companies at levels that are at Khan Market planned to shut shop. lower demand in the a discount to their pre- The restaurants, which operate at post-Covid world. Covid levels but not at slender margins at the best of times, “Airlines are flying at “Th is phase prices that would reflect complained that landlords were about 30 percent of of opening reduced demand for unwilling to lower rentals. With lower their capacity at 55 up presents several quarters. This footfalls and takeaway orders at a percent load factors,” the trickiest phase of opening up fraction of earlier numbers, the tweeted Sanjiv valuation presents the trickiest business was unviable. Customers who Kapoor, former chief puzzle for valuation puzzle for had planned to visit Café Turtle and commercial officer at analysts. They analysts. They must Khan Chacha’s once they reopened Vistara. “Do the math. must price in price in a recovery in were disappointed. Less than 20 percent a recovery in demand that may or may This tug of war points to the delicate of pre-Covid demand demand that not happen. reckoning that a number of businesses is back,” he said. Fixed may or may not In the absence of face. With demand numbers still costs for InterGlobe happen.” clear demand numbers, uncertain, they are taking a hard look Aviation and SpiceJet (Contd on Page 9)

forbes india • july 3, 2020 (Contd from Page 8) percent from its February peak, but Phoenix Mills, which is locked in investors have taken some money off passenger loads are barely 20 percent rental negotiations with tenants, is the table. If demand doesn’t recover, of pre-Covid times. So even if prices cheaper by 31 percent. Indian Hotels these companies may prove to be have fallen, its multiple has expanded is down by 38 percent. It would take expensive even at the lower prices. as both revenues and profitability are several months for more accurate Take airlines for instance. expected to decline significantly this forecasts to emerge. InterGlobe Aviation is down by 47 fiscal. SpiceJet is down by 43 percent. ● Samar Srivastava

debt financing among others, with offers from September this year to March 2021. Lizzie Chapman, chief executive Luring With Loans and co-founder of digital lending startup ZestMoney, says: “There EMI-linked products are getting popular and several companies is a massive boom in demand for are making attractive offers during the lockdown, but can people repay? EMI products. We are seeing that even those who do not necessarily In May, when the Reserve makes the market more challenging. need finance are more likely to Bank of India (RBI) cut the As a result, lenders have come out take one because the future is repo rate further to 4 percent with innovative schemes to lure uncertain.” ZestMoney, along with this year, it paved the way for private customers. Digit Insurance, had in 2019 created and public sector banks to lower their Hyundai Motors has an “EMI a product—which continues to be lending rates, and in turn their EMIs. Assurance Programme” wherein operative—covering customers for Banks, through an RBI directive, it will pay for three car loan EMIs a portion of their debt burden of have offered an extension of the for customers working in a private EMIs in case they cannot pay due to moratorium on loan repayments, but firm who have lost their jobs due to hospitalisation, permanent disability that does not mean it is a waiver. In poor financial health of the firm or or death. Several finance firms have 9 times as uncertain as these—when its acquisition or merger. The cover since introduced similar ‘credit individuals have seen salary cuts or is underwritten by Shriram General protect plus insurance’ products. lost jobs and small businesses have Insurance and applicable on loans Chapman says they have doubled seen a complete drop in revenues from for select cars that were purchased the number of edtech partners, customers—payment of EMIs on loans in June. The allowed EMI amount is forecasting the demand for loans in has become a challenge. minimum `2,000 and up to `50,000. this sector in coming months. Bajaj Finance, which has a range The Bajaj Finserv Health EMI Due to the lockdown and standstill of products to induce people to take Network card, on the other hand, in business, bank credit to individuals loans or spend more on their cards and allows individuals to pay for medical and small businesses has fallen. Credit pay through EMIs, has seen a drop in expenses incurred, in EMIs. This from banks towards housing has profit, assets under management and applies to treatments such as dental fallen by 0.61 percent, vehicles by 1.65 number of customers too. This only care, eye care and hair transplantation percent, unsecured personal loans

k by 3.69 percent and MSMEs by 4.22 oc t s percent, according to RBI data for April compared to March. hutter s Chapman says with India’s household debt-to-GDP ratio at 12 percent (as of January), much lower than China’s (55 percent as of December 2019) and the US (75 percent in January), its outstanding credit lines are low and can rise in the coming years. The critical element for individuals and small businesses in India will, however, be the ability to repay loans, come September 1, when the moratorium on loans is lifted. ● Salil Panchal

july 3, 2020 • forbes india k c o 1.5 lakh t ers

The number of Covid-19 samples being tt

tested every day in India in June, up shu LeaderBoard from 10,000 in late March

In late March, India tested covid-19 under 10,000 Covid-19 samples a day. People with influenza-like symptoms, and without Why India Needs To a history of foreign travel, couldn’t get tested as the country struggled with making test kits available. By the end Test Even More People of April, the numbers had moved up Despite increase in daily number of tests, higher positivity rates in to 30,000 tests a day. In June, an certain cities point to the need for more inclusive approach average of 150,000 samples were es g

being tested a day, according to the a m

Indian Council for Medical Research. y I tt While testing capacity is no a Ge longer a constraint, even now it i es v es

turns out that getting tested is a im an T challenge. As the number of tests t

has gone up, there have been wide ndus Hi / variations in positivity rates (the i l A b number of tests confirmed to have i ak S the Covid-19 virus as a percentage of total tests conducted). This number is important, as it shows that infections in certain cities have become clustered. The national positivity rate stands at 5.7 percent, with some states 10 like Himachal Pradesh (0.5 percent) and Jharkhand (1.06 percent) recording lower rates. Delhi and Mumbai have been particularly hard hit, with positivity rates of 27 and 32 (between June 7 and 11) percent respectively. Both A medical professional collects a swab sample from a woman to test for Covid-19 infection at cities have capped the number of the Joint District Hospital of Sanjay Nagar in Ghaziabad tests being conducted at 4,500 to of community transmission has to 5,000 a day, and have declined to test be taken seriously,” says Dr Anup Higher Positives asymptomatic cases. (Note: These Warrier, senior consultant, Aster numbers do vary. On some days, Medicity, Kochi. According to Maharashtra Delhi has tested only 3,700 samples.) him, there is little point in denying 16.6 As a result, there has been a decline community transmissions, as testing Delhi in positive cases in these cities, even rates in high positivity areas are not as the positivity rate has risen. This being ramped up. 10 points to a false sense of calm as it On June 11, a change in testing Gujarat is clear that a number of people are protocol in Delhi, where all 8.3 slipping through the net. Though asymptomatic cases were tested, potentially asymptomatic, they could pushed the number of positive cases Bihar infect others. to 1,877—the single highest daily 5 The lack of testing in cities where count. While data on the number of cases are clustered has surprised tests carried out is awaited, it is clear Madhya Pradesh infectious disease experts, as testing that in areas with high positivity 4.7 capacity is no longer an issue. “When rates, more tests will result in more

Data is average for two weeks starting May 25; numbers we have such high positivity rates, cases being recorded. As more states in percentage—for instance in Maharashtra, 16.6 percent it has to be taken as an indirect loosen testing protocols, expect of all tests came positive indicator of a wide prevalence in the infections and positivity rates to rise. Source covid19india.org community and hence the possibility ● Samar Srivastava

forbes india • July 3, 2020

LEADING BY

VERSATILITY!

In a world where a ‘Jack of all trades’ is what schools don’t teach. The considered to be the master of none, Dr. Abhay initiative was the result of one Valsangkar’s life tells a very different story. Dr. question that stayed in his mind Valsangkar’s life has spoken of unusual choices continuously - ‘Our education system right from the beginning. will produce doctors and engineers, but what about socially responsible, Currently the Chief Consultant, AAYAAM, Dr. culturally aware and creatively Abhay Valsangkar’s story starts from his diverse inclined pupils’? The Versatility choice of educational degrees. The list is as strong Quotient involves a variety of as is lengthy. Beginning with a bachelor’s degree in subjects, ranging from arts to Economics, Dr. Valsangkar went on to pursue two development of global awareness. master’s degrees - one in General Law and another in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations. Dr. Abhay Valsangkar’s journey has Not one to become complacent, Dr. Valsangkar been shaped by his varying interests topped his qualifications with a Doctorate in in life. Living by the theme of ‘Diversity and Inclusion Practices in Relation to the versatility, his hobbies are as U.N. Directions’. different as chalk and cheese. He enjoys reading fiction as much as he For the next 30 years Dr. Valsangkar donned the enjoys reading non-fiction. Travelling, hats of strategy enabler, organisation builder, cooking, Hindustani classical music culture creator, HR head and Country head across and creative writing elicit equal various industries - like chemicals, pharmaceuticals, passion from his side. food, financial services and IT. When all of that was not enough to satiate his hunger for getting more Dr. Valsangkar feels that in a world out of life, he ventured into the field of of specialism and super-specialism, entrepreneurship. His journey as an entrepreneur singing a tune of versatility is like has been no less exciting. swimming against the tide, and he says he ‘chose that path consciously’. Running a business with a vision is common, but He believes that the entrepreneurs of helping individuals and organisations in envisioning today and the future need to acquire a bright future is out of the ordinary. As a strategy a holistic awareness of the world consultant, Dr. Valsangkar personally mentors C- around them which goes beyond the level executives globally. To ensure that the realms of the restricted world of mentorship leads to greater gains, it is supported business. He clearly envisions by well-thought of strategy and execution entrepreneurs to be society leaders mechanisms. When asked what he enjoys the most who are not merely accountable for in his role as a strategy consultant, he fervently building successful businesses but are credits it to, ‘Autonomy and a variety of equally responsible for bringing in experience.’ societal changes through business initiatives. Being an alumnus of Bombay University and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Dr. Valsangkar He has no illusions that the path is realised the role that quality education plays in life. going to be simple, but has a Wanting to catch students while still young, he touching faith in the work being done modulated his role as a strategy consultant to help by many young entrepreneurs who school going students as well. His quest to help are tirelessly working to leverage young minds broaden their horizons led to him to technologies for the betterment of develop a ‘Versatility Quotient’ for students. The the society. ‘And only the versatile Versatility Quotient was brought to life to create will succeed’, signs off Dr. experiential settings for students to be able to learn Valsangkar.

k c o 15-20% t ers

Fall in price of residential tt

apartments before shu LeaderBoard the Covid-19 pandemic

Real Estate apartments had fallen by 15 to 20 percent. Analysts indicate the trend will continue for two years. Can Realtors So if developers are forced to take a haircut in these high-ticket projects, Really Slash Prices? does that provide a window for others across the country to do the same? High cost of land, labour and raw materials, along with steep loan rates According to a research note by post-Covid-19, will put developers in a spot Adhidev Chattopadhyay of ICICI k c

o Securities Ltd, “Residential property t

ers prices in the markets of South India, tt Pune and NCR range between `5,000- shu 6,000 per sq ft against construction costs plus land costs of at least `4,300- 4,900 per sq ft for developers. This translates to pre-Covid-19 project level Ebitda margins of around 15 to 20 percent for developers…” and hence he believes these markets, including outer Mumbai Metropolitan Region areas like Kalyan, Dombivli, Navi Mumbai, Thane, and the extended Western suburbs would see a 5 to 10 percent correction in prices more in the form of indirect discounts 12 rather than a cut in the quoted prices. Why is it tough for developers to Of late, prominent voices While some developers own land cut prices? Before Rera, realtors held like Union Minister Piyush bought at lower rates, most Mumbai on to prices by selling fewer units Goyal and banking doyens developers, especially in southern rather than offer discounts. But now, Uday Kotak and Deepak Parekh are and central parts of the city, bought they have to pay to get permissions speaking out on how real estate land at exorbitant rates over the and other approvals before launching developers need to cut prices. Kotak last decade, amounting to 50 to 75 a project, thereby increasing the said developers need to let go of the percent of the project cost. Yet, over initial cost. Coupled with lower sales, fact that they bought land at higher the last four or five years, prices rise in labour costs with workers costs, and now make sales feasible. have stagnated and even fallen due returning to their hometowns, But is this easier said than done? to oversupply and overpricing. Even and rise in the cost of construction According to a note by Knight pre-Covid-19 prices of residential material, it is only going to get tougher Frank Research on June 10, between for builders. Chattopadhyay says, January and May 2020, only one Residential Real Estate: excluding land cost, construction private equity deal in the residential costs vary between `3,796 per sq ft for space was closed at $40 million as Shift in Investor Preference a 20-storey building to `5,623 per sq ft compared to 11 deals worth $469 from Equity to Debt for a 40-storey one. Eyquit Debt million in the same period last year. The other hanging sword is the Due to low investor appetite, the 21% 100% financing cost. While most non- 32% share of residential in the overall 44% 52% 35% banking financial companies that 68% 49% investment pie has shrunk from 60 79% offered loans to realtors have been 66% 68% percent in 2011 to 11 percent in 2019. 69% 65% trying hard to sell their exposures 56% 48% Yet, realtors have long argued 49% to each other, they are charging 34% against reducing prices because of 31% 32% developers between 12.8 and 20 land costs. Also, if a developer cuts the percent. With costs escalating, it 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 price of a project, existing customers will be a tough ask for developers to Note: YTD 2020 represent investments till 31st May 2020 will ask for discounts, leading to a survive this mess. Source Knight Frank Research, Venture Intelligence market price crash in the area. ● Pooja Sarkar

forbes india • July 3, 2020

ck

`4.2 L cr sto er

Estimated size of India's restaurant utt h

industry; organised restaurants s LeaderBoard account for 35 percent of it

food & beverages ‘We Are Confident We Won’t Leave Sales On The Table’ Smita Jatia, managing director, Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd, which operates the McDonald’s franchises in India’s west and south zones, on business during and after the three-month lockdown s

ge q For a fast-serve chain like yours, how will you keep up tty Ima

e with the pace of sanitisation? a G i We started a work-from-home s v e

m programme for employees during Ti the lockdown, to teach them about new sanitisation norms. We have an ndustan ndustan i extensive 42-point list our crew has been trained in. No bare hands touch

Raj K Raj / H K Raj Raj any food or surface. We’ve made blocks through the restaurant for people to stand in, to maintain social distance. We’ll be doing temperature checks for customers as well as crew, and customers won’t be able to come 14 in without masks.

q What does the future of QSRs look like? A lot of customers will now use us Not only delivery, drive-through and takeaway are also doing well for McDonald's for convenience, versus earlier, when q What have the past few months continue to be the focus? they would come in to hang out. been like for McDonald’s, and Not only delivery, drive-through But once offices and colleges open, what are your plans to reopen? and takeaway are also doing very people will have to find places with Once food delivery was declared well for us. We are going to further safe meals and value for money. The essential early in the lockdown, we leverage our digital strategy to create difference is that they may order or started opening hubs in different an omni-view of the customer; this takeaway. But we won’t be leaving cities. We didn’t need to open all means the same customer wants to any sales on the table. outlets—with no one on the streets, order delivery in the office, or pick The customer in India is going we were able to cover the entire up a cup of coffee as takeaway. We through unpredictability, and a bit of city from a few restaurants, keeping have introduced a new delivery fear psychosis too. They are going to operating costs under control. In feature called ‘on the go’, where you be very conservative, and big-ticket April, we had 98 restaurants open— can have your order delivered to items will be impacted. However, about 37 percent of our total stores. your car. every person is going to want to get In May, certain states eased rules Cou rtesy: Hardcastle Restaurants out after 70+ days of lockdown. That's for takeaway, and we opened 191 human tendency. Eating out is a big “ people restaurants. In June, dine-in is also part of that journey. You have to be will have opening in some states. By the end of to find very cautious in your approach as a the month, we’re hoping 83 percent places business on how to move forward, of restaurants will open, 50 percent with safe take these couple of months as a of which will be operating dine-in. meals and bump on the road, and come back value for bolder and better. q What is your strategy for the money.” ● Pankti Mehta Kadakia next few months—will delivery & Kathakali Chanda

forbes india • july 3, 2020 ck

17.51% sto er

J ob loss rate across India in the week utt h

ended June 7, according to the Centre for s LeaderBoard Monitoring Indian Economy

interview second synergy is between poverty reduction and economic growth, and this human capital. We argue that ‘Consider Urban the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction is weak Employment Guarantee in India; the most important reason, from the point of reviving jobs, is this relationship is mediated through And Cash Transfers’ job creation, especially in the non- Professor Santosh Mehrotra, editor of the book Reviving Jobs, agriculture sector. talks about India’s high unemployment rates, and how to tackle Unless India invests much more them in future in health and education, it is unlikely d r to return to the growth rate of l Wa e 2004-2014. a

Mich q India's GDP growth for the March-ended quarter slowed to 3.1 percent, an 11-year low. With the current pandemic-related job losses, what is the way forward? The government’s stimulus package is rather weak. What the economy needs is revival in demand, which can happen with fiscal stimulus, and this fiscal stimulus is only 1 percent of the GDP, compared to the 2008 fiscal 15 stimulus, which was 4 percent of the GDP. It is true that the government has increased money for MNREGA [rural jobs], but around 8 to 9 million q What are the reasons for the labour force between 2004 people have migrated back, which increasing unemployment in India, and 2012, it increased to 5 million. will lead to a drop in agricultural and what is the way forward? Simultaneously, the number of jobs wages. The government should think There are two sets of reasons for the created started shrinking. about urban employment guarantee employment crisis, and they existed as well. There should also be some even before the pandemic. q What is the dual synergies model cash transfer, as a minimum income Between 2004 and 2014, the for tackling this issue, which you guarantee, to poor households. economy was growing at 8 percent have mentioned in the book? per annum on an average and was We have argued that there is a case q What social policies are required generating 7.5 million new non- for understanding the for the informal sector? agricultural jobs every year. The whole economy through The economy is going to economy has been slowing after the dual synergies “The take a long time to revive, 2014: The Economic Survey of 2019- model. The first synergy economy but the government should 20 reports that the growth rate of states that separate slowed and come up with a visionary 2014-15 was in fact 7.5 percent, and interventions in health, the number code that will enable 8 percent in 2015-16. Now growth education, nutrition, of jobs social security for all has slowed to 4.3 percent in 2019-20. water-sanitation, created informal workers. All non- So the economy slowed, and created fertility control, and started agricultural workers must fewer jobs. education complement shrinking.” be given EPFO coverage, The second reason for each other and increase while poor unorganised unemployment is the increasing the impact that one workers must get state- number of new entrants to the intervention has on another. This funded social insurance. It would cost labour force. While 2 million leads to a certain level of human no more than 0.65 percent of GDP. people per annum were joining capital that a country develops. The ● Pooja Sarkar

july 3, 2020 • forbes india 1,154 Number of confirmed coronavirus

cases in New Zealand before the shutterstock LeaderBoard country became virus-free on June 8

New Billionaire Sound Prognosis Dr Arvind Lal joins the ten-figure club as his labs conduct thousands of Covid-19 tests each day across India es

In late March, as the g ma coronavirus sent India into I a nationwide lockdown, Dr Arvind Lal, 70, sprang into action.

His Dr Lal PathLabs, one of India’s via Getty imes T

largest diagnostic chains, quickly won n

regulatory approval to conduct dusta n i Covid-19 tests, becoming one of the H y / o

first private labs able to test the R country’s masses.

That’s been a boon for the Prabhas publicly traded company, which is now conducting several thousand Covid tests per day across its labs in New Delhi, Kolkata and Indore. While the tests themselves do not add significantly to revenues, 16 the company is benefiting from favourable sentiment toward the diagnostics sector. Shares are up by 19 percent since Prime Minister Narendra Modi instituted India’s lockdown on March 24, enough to make Lal—its chairman, he owns a 57 percent stake in the chain—newly a billionaire. In addition to the tests, which the company says require nasal and throat swabs and can produce a result within 48 hours, it rolled out sample-collection vans to help speed the process, and trained staff The company did not respond to a course in pathology at the Armed in contamination avoidance. “We request for comment on the inquiry. Forces Medical College in Pune. conduct regular training Last year Lal After his father died suddenly, drills to ensure that safety PathLabs—which Lal returned home and took over protocols are maintained,” i n addition operates more than 200 management of the diagnostic lab and says Vandana Lal, Lal’s to the clinical laboratories and blood bank his father had founded in wife, a pathologist tests it nearly 6,500 sample- 1949. He expanded it through a series who heads its clinical conducted, pickup points across of acquisitions and took it public in research and R&D. In DR Lal India—brought in revenue the year 2015. May, however, the Delhi PathLabs of $174 million. His daughter, Archana Lal government, which is rolled out Lal’s path to billionaire Erdmann, a geneticist, is a monitoring Covid testing sample- status began in 1977, when non-executive director at Lal in the city, launched an collection he was 28. He had earned PathLabs. Lal’s son, Anjaneya Lal, is inquiry into discrepancies vans his medical degree and a freelance wildlife photographer. in the firm’s test reports. was taking a postgraduate ● ANU RAGHUNATHAN

forbes india • July 3, 2020

L eaderBoard

The List Celebrity

100From Netflix to Yeezy: How this year’s top-earning stars turned the business of celebrity into $6.1 billion, $200 million shy of last year’s haul

18

Kanye West

JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX/AFP via Getty Images

forbes india • ju ly 3, 2020 k tterstoc

Y ear in which Oprah Winfrey ended her eponymous talk hu 2011 show. She returns to the Forbes Celeb 100 List this year s

Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / FilmMagic / Getty Images 1. Kylie Jenner paperwork? When dealing $590 MLn • Personality with such oversized 2. Kanye West ambitions, verification is $170 • Musician key. The Coty sale backed up our estimate, based 3. Roger Federer on the value of Kylie $106.3 • Athlete Cosmetics, that Kylie 4. Cristiano Ronaldo Jenner was the world’s $105 • Athlete youngest self-made billionaire. (Her net worth 5. Lionel Messi has now fallen below $104 • Athlete $1 billion as Forbes has 6. Tyler Perry re-evaluated her business $97 • Personality amid the pandemic.) 7. Neymar But new filings released $95.5 • Athlete by Coty lay bare one of the family’s best-kept 8. Howard Stern secrets: Kylie’s company is Personality $90 • substantially smaller than 9. LeBron James she claimed. Kylie and her $88.2 • Athlete mother, Kris Jenner, who helps run the business, 10. Dwayne Johnson had been insisting that $87.5 • Actor Kylie Cosmetics was 11. Rush Limbaugh generating over $300 $85 • Personality million in revenue every 19 12. Ellen DeGeneres Kylie Jenner year since 2016—even $84 • Personality going so far as to provide Forbes with tax returns, 13. Bill Simmons In one of the than their millions. “It’s which she signed and says Personality $82.5 • biggest celebrity fair to say that everything were submitted to the IRS. 14. Elton John cash-outs of all the Kardashian-Jenner While we can’t prove that $81 • Musician time, Kylie Jenner agreed family does is oversized. those documents were to sell 51 percent of her To stay on-brand, it needs fake (though it’s likely), 15. James Patterson Kylie Cosmetics to beauty to be bigger than it is,” it’s clear that Kylie’s camp $80 • Author giant Coty in November. says Stephanie Wissink, a has been lying. The filings 16. Stephen Curry Her cut: $540 million consumer product analyst indicate that sales were just $74.4 • Athlete before taxes, by Forbes’s at Jefferies. That’s what led $125 million in 2018, not 17. Ariana Grande estimates—more than Wall Kanye to open his books $360 million as her reps $72 • Musician Street thought it was to Forbes in April to prove had previously claimed. worth, and more than he’s a billionaire. America’s Then there’s Kylie’s skin 18. Ryan Reynolds enough to crown her this hip-hop genius sent over care line, which it said did $71.5 • Actor year’s top-earning documents outlining the $100 million in sales in 19. Gordon Ramsay celebrity. Right behind her massive royalty cheques less than two months last $70 • Personality at No 2 is brother-in-law Adidas sends him, plus an year; the filings show it was Kanye West, who brought accounting of his assets, all actually “on track” to end 20. Jonas Brothers $68.5 • Musicians in all but $10 million or so the way down to $297,050 the year with revenue of of his estimated $170 worth of livestock on his $25 million. million in pre-tax earnings Wyoming ranches. We Pressed for answers on from his high-end sneaker pegged his net worth the many discrepancies, brand, Yeezy. at $1.3 billion. (Kanye the typically chatty Jenners But this cash-grabbing maintains he’s worth well did something out of clan would rather talk more than double that.) character: They stopped about their “billions” Why insist on answering our questions.

ju ly 3, 2020 • forbes india L eaderBoard

J aSON Mendez / WireImage / Getty Images 21. The Chainsmokers 43. Billie Eilish $68 • Musicians $53 • Musician

22. Dr Phil 44. Rory McIlroy $65.5 • Personality $52 • Athlete

23. Ed Sheeran 45. Simon Cowell $64 • musician $51 • Personality

24. Kevin Durant 45. Jerry Seinfeld $63.9 • Athlete $51 • Comedian

25. Taylor Swift 47.The BTS List $63.5 • Musician $50 • MusicianS

26. Tiger Woods 48. Kim Kardashian West $62.3 • Athlete $49.5 • Personality

27. Kirk Cousins 49. Drake $60.5 • Athlete $49 • Musician Ryan Reynolds 28. JK Rowling 49. Jared Goff $60 • Author The hotshot who plays a billionaire on Netflix’s $49 • Athlete Six Underground and stars in its upcoming film Red 28. Post Malone Notice collected $48.5 million from the streaming 49. Judy Sheindlin $60 • Musician giant in the past year, more than anyone on this list; $49 • Personality 28. Ryan Seacrest all together, the stars here pulled in $220 million from 52. Akshay Kumar $60 • Personality Netflix, up by 200 percent from 2019, bringing the $48.5 • Actor five-year total to nearly $600 million 31. Carson Wentz 53. Conor McGregor $59.1 • Athlete $48 • Athlete 20 Karwai Tang / WireImage / Getty Images 32. Rolling Stones 54. James Harden $59 • Musicians $47.8 • Athlete

33. Mark Wahlberg 55. Giannis Antetokounmpo $58 • Actor $47.6 • Athlete

34. Tyson Fury 56. Jennifer Lopez $57 • Athlete $47.5 • Musician

35. Marshmello 57. Anthony Joshua $56 • Musician $47 • Athlete

35. Russell Westbrook 57. Pink $56 • Athlete $47 • Musician

37. Ben Affleck 59. Deontay Wilder $55 • Actor $46.5 • Athlete

37. Diddy 60. David Copperfield $55 • Musician $46 • Magician

39. Shawn Mendes 60. Rihanna $54.5 • Musician $46 • Musician

40. Vin Diesel 62. Lin-Manuel Miranda $54 • Actor $45.5 • Actor Bi llie Eilish 40. Lewis Hamilton 62. Luke Bryan Winner of five Grammys this year. 'When We All Fall $54 • Athlete $45.5 • Musician Asleep, Where Do We Go?' was the No 1 album of 2019, 42. Jay-Z with 3.9 million units sold. She reportedly collected 64. Backstreet Boys $53.5 • Musician $25 million from Apple for a documentary about her $45 • Musicians life and career, and if the coronavirus hadn’t killed her arena tour, she might have cracked the Top 20

forbes india • ju ly 3, 2020 k tterstoc

Amount Cristiano Ronaldo gets from Nike annually. hu $20 mln The company signed him for a lifetime deal in 2016 s

Kevin Winter / Getty Images 64. Tom Brady 87. Bon Jovi $45 • Athlete $38 • Musicians

64. Phil Collins 87. Lady Gaga $45 • Musician $38 • Musician

67. Drew Brees 87. U2 $44.8 • Athlete $38 • Musicians

68. Novak Djokovic 90. Naomi Osaka $44.6 • Athlete $37.4 • Athlete

69. Will Smith 91. Canelo Álvarez $44.5 • Actor $37 • Athlete

70. Blake Shelton 91. Damian Lillard $43.5 • Musician $37 • Athlete

71. Sean Hannity 91. Paul McCartney $43 • Personality $37 • Musician

71. Sofia Vergara 91. Oprah Winfrey $43 • Actor $37 • Personality

73. Celine Dion 95. DJ Khaled $42 • Musician T ravis Scott $36.5 • Musician 74. Kyrie Irving He played the Super Bowl for free, but his Astroworld 95. Kiss $41.9 • Athlete tour grossed $53.5 million in 2019, the year’s top $36.5 • MusicianS hip-hop road show. He followed it with a free Fortnite 75. The Eagles 97. Sebastian Vettel concert series for over 27 million viewers—far more $41 • Musicians $36.3 • Athlete than saw Astroworld—when the pandemic hit, helping 21 75. Adam Sandler boost sales of his Cactus Jack products: Sneakers, 98. Serena Williams $41 • Actor action figures and more $36 • Athlete 77. Phil Mickelson 99. Angelina Jolie $40.8 • Athlete Quality Sport Images / Getty Images $35.5 • Actor

78. Julio Jones 100. Mohamed Salah $40.5 • athlete $35.1 • Athlete

78. Metallica Edited by $40.5 • musicians Zack O’Malley Greenburg and Rob LaFranco 80. Jackie Chan Reported by $40 • Actor Kurt Badenhausen, Kellen Becoats, Madeline Berg, Dawn Chmielewski, Hayley Cuccinello, 80. Rafael Nadal Abigail Freeman, Chase Peterson- $40 • Athlete Withorn, Christina Settimi, Ariel Shapiro and Chloe Sorvino 82. Heidi Klum $39.5 • Personality Methodology: This list ranks “front of the camera” 82. Travis Scott stars worldwide using pre-tax $39.5 • Musician earnings from June 2019 through May 2020 before deducting fees for managers, lawyers and agents. 84. Kevin Hart Figures are based on information $39 • Comedian N aomi Osaka from Nielsen Music/MRC Data, A mix of Japanese and Haitian heritage (and a Pollstar, IMDB, NPD BookScan and 85. Klay Thompson ComScore, as well as interviews monster backhand) make her a dream for marketers, with industry experts and many of $38.8 • Athlete including Nike, Nissan and a dozen others that signed the stars themselves 86. Katy Perry endorsement deals with the 22-year-old ace ahead of $38.5 • Musician the Tokyo Olympics. Back-to-back Grand Slam wins and a massive overseas following have made Osaka the top-earning female athlete for the first time

ju ly 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

22 ‘The Future Lies In Blended Learning’ HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on making India a global hub for education, building digital classrooms during Covid-19 and the new policy to grow into a knowledge superpower

By Manu Balachandran

t’s been a challenging Uttarakhand, talks about the future of q What is the HRD ministry doing period for Human Resource education in India. Edited excerpts: to ensure delivery of education to Development (HRD) Minister students during this period? And will Ramesh Pokhriyal. In the wake q What has been the biggest that set a precedent for the future? of the Covid-19 pandemic, learning from the Covid-19 crisis? With determination and dedication, Inumerous companies withdrew the One of the key learnings has been the current crisis can be turned job offers they had made to students the need to promote and implement into an opportunity. We are of the country’s top institutions, online education. We have always laying more emphasis on online including IITs and IIMs. Besides, believed in the power of the internet resources, platforms, bandwidth,

es vi a Gett y I m ag a n T imes with the outbreak disrupting the to take education to the masses and and availability of technological academic year and exams, the have come up with several initiatives solutions, rather than physical spaces. ministry has been at the forefront over the last few years to help more We understand that these facilities v / Hindust a

a d of setting up online classrooms. In students learn online. With the are dynamic and will evolve with an email interview, Pokhriyal, who impact Covid-19 has had, we are changing times. According to me,

Arvind Y Arvind was previously chief minister of doubling our efforts in this direction. the future lies in ‘blended learning’.

forbes india • juLY 3, 2020 ramesh pokhriyal

At the school level, through operation Digital Board, we aim Initiatives will facilitate collaborations to strengthen the existing digital between the top 100 Indian institutes infrastructure of our schools. Diksha, and those from 28 select countries E-Pathshala, NROER (National Repository of Open Educational Resources), Swayam (Study Webs of to become more attractive? thousand with three institutions Active-Learning for Young Aspiring We are taking several measures making it to the top 200. As far as Minds), and other e-platforms are to ensure students get world-class promoting research is concerned, providing high quality and engaging education in India itself. Students we are dedicated to developing a digital resource materials to teachers, from Indian institutes hold various world-class research infrastructure. students, and parents which are in line leadership positions in some of We believe by making a significant with the prescribed school curriculum. the top corporations globally and investment in the infrastructure of our The programme will also speed up that validates the quality of the institutions we can make them more the setting up of digital classrooms. Indian education system. That said, competitive. The Higher Education Digital and smartboards will be initiatives like Sparc (Scheme for Financing Agency (HEFA) provides provided in all government and Promotion of Academic and Research financial assistance for the creation government-aided schools having Collaboration) will facilitate academic of educational infrastructure and secondary and senior secondary and research collaborations between R&D in India’s premier educational classes. This will address the problems the top-100 Indian institutions as per institutions. It will fund projects to of bandwidth and connectivity. NIRF (National Institute Ranking the tune of `100,000 crore by 2022. To address the digital divide, the Framework) and the best institutions As of December 11, 2019, projects HRD ministry has tied up with the in the world from 28 selected worth `37,001.21 crore have been ministry of information & broadcasting nations. This will ensure visits and approved, out of which loan amount to air Swayam Prabha channels on long-term stay of top international worth `25,564.52 crore has been DTH platforms. For remote areas that faculty and researchers in Indian sanctioned and `5,537 crore has been 23 neither have access to the internet nor institutions to pursue teaching and disbursed. The number of educational electronic gadgets, we plan to provide research. But with the situation at institutions that have availed funding them with books, both new and old, hand, we will work out a blended through HEFA stands at 75. free of cost or at a very low price. We learning model so that the students are also in the process of exploring can get the best of both worlds. q The placements at many IITs the option where All India Radio can We are determined to make India and IIMs had run into trouble with transmit the curriculum to students. a global hub of education. India companies pulling out after making has a huge network of over 1,000 offers. How effective has been q Will the new education policy universities and more than 55,000 the task force that you set up? be more technology-oriented? degree colleges. With a deep focus on We received several complaints To understand the challenges and online and distance learning, we are regarding this. I have appealed to opportunities on ground, I travelled making every effort to provide quality companies to not withdraw any job across the country and visited education. The ministry has launched offers. I have spoken to the heads Kendriya Vidyalayas and IITs. I even a special programme called ‘Study in of institutions, my officers, and interacted with various stakeholders India’ to facilitate foreign students requested them to personally look to understand what they want since coming to India for higher education. into this matter. Companies have the new policy will directly impact We have introduced several disciplines assured us that they may postpone them. The policy will focus on the under Study in India and are the dates of joining, but offers will promotion of research and innovation, constantly working towards making not be revoked. We are looking at internationalisation and conservation India the preferred destination. individual complaints and following of Indian knowledge systems. In up with the employers. It’s a difficult the longer run, I envision India to q Yet, India’s universities have time and the entire ecosystem needs be a global knowledge superpower been found wanting when it to work together. It will be unfair with a robust education system. comes to global rankings. not to hire these students who are Indian students have been doing bright and can contribute towards q The crisis will force many students quite well if you look at the global pulling the country out of this to look within India for higher scenario. Last year, we had 24 situation. We are trying our best to studies. What can institutions do Indian institutions in the top reach out to various stakeholders.

juLY 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India Sambhaji Jaid at his farm in Manchar, Mahrashtra

24

Seeding Change The government’s agriculture sector reforms aim to open up a nationwide market for farmers. But that’s a far way off without supporting infrastructure and storage facilities

courtesy: Farmpal courtesy: By Naini Thaker

forbes india • july 3, 2020 Agri reforms

or years, Dnyandev Hon In 2017, when he was setting up travelled 20 km with his Farmpal along with his co-founder produce in a rented vehicle, Puneet Sethi, Karan recollects, twice a month, to the “We had to go through a number of Kopergoan Agricultural obstacles to get a licence to operate FProduce Market Committee in Maharashtra.” Besides, the access (APMC) mandi in Maharashtra. of agritech players like Farmpal was On some days, he even travelled restricted to farmers in a certain about 200 km when he needed to geography, as each state had its sell his produce—onions, wheat or own licence, underlying processes, soyabean grown on his 1.5 hectare paperwork and costs. “These reforms farm—at the Pune APMC mandi. were long overdue, but it is better late “The involvement of middlemen than never,” says Karan, adding that didn’t allow us to get a fair price for the three-year-old startup can now our produce. It was painful to see expand rapidly across the country. that all our hard work and sacrifices “The reforms were “Since there is no stock limit on had no value, with the middlemen long overdue, but essential commodities now, we can pocketing 50 to 60 percent,” recalls choose to store our produce in a the farmer, adding that sometimes it is better late cold storage, if prices have crashed,” they were unable to recover than never.” explains Jaid, who gets his payment even the transportation costs. via direct bank transfer within three One thing was clear to him—he KARAN HON, to four days of sale. He adds, “We now had to educate his three children founde r, farmpal have the choice to sell to whoever enough so they didn’t have to go gives us the best price, not just within through what he did. He remembers the state but in other states too.” telling his children, “Work hard, states, due to the stringent rules With a push from the government 25 and become anything in life, even and regulations. Now, with the new for e-trade of agriculture produce, if it’s a clerk or a peon at a bank, agriculture reforms announced Mumbai-based startup AgriBazaar too but don’t become a farmer.” in June, Farmpal is looking at sees a lot of potential for growth. The Karan, Dnyandev Hon’s son, nationwide expansion and Jaid startup has replicated the physical became an engineer, went and worked will have far more options. mandi to an e-mandi aggregator with tech giants like Tech Mahindra The reforms announced were model, where once a farmer registers in Denmark and SAP in Australia, three-pronged: First, an amendment and uploads his produce, buyers then returned to India. In 2017, he to the stringent 65-year-old Essential can place orders for purchase. set up Farmpal, a farm-to-market Commodities Act (ECA), removing “Why does a farmer go to an APMC company, to ensure other farmers did cereals, edible oil, oil seeds, pulses, mandi? To sell his produce, get a not have to suffer like his father. The onions and potato from the list of fair price via auctions, and logistical company lets farmers know the price essential commodities. “The freedom support," says Amit Agarwal, CEO and of their produce before they harvest to produce, hold, move, distribute co-founder, AgriBazaar. "Through the crop, pays them a premium of 15 and supply will lead to harnessing of our platform, we are enabling each to 30 percent over what they would economies of scale and attract private of these functions. Right from an get in a mandi, collects the produce sector/foreign direct investment into option between negotiable trade from them, processes it and sells agriculture sector,” said the press and fixed auction to transferring it to retailers and hypermarkets. release. Secondly, farmers and traders funds via our digital wallets and “At the local mandi, we had to will enjoy freedom of choice relating facilitating logistics.” Currently, the sell at whatever price the local to sale and purchase of farmers’ startup is working with over 2 lakh trader offered,” says Sambhaji Jaid, produce; with the barriers to inter- farmers in 21 states. However, as with a farmer from Manchar, about 60 state and intra-state trade removed, Farmpal, AgriBazaar’s licences limit km from Pune, who jumped at the a farmer can also do e-trading of it to trading in individual states. opportunity when Farmpal reached agricultural produce. Thirdly, an AgriBazaar is like a private out to him three years ago. ordinance has been passed to allow counterpart to the pan-India But farmers like Jaid and startups contract farming, which lets farmers electronic National Agriculture like Farmpal were still restricted make contract arrangements with Market or eNAM platform, except to selling and buying in particular retailers, exporters and processors. that eNAM does not help facilitate

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

logistics. Now, with these reforms mentioned, otherwise a trader will be (among other sectors), adds that there in place, Agarwal says eNAM unsure of what he is buying. Once this will be a co-existence of multiple might be open to tie-ups with is done, online auctions will pick up.” supply chains. “There will be more private players like AgriBazaar. Private and foreign investment de-layering and disintermediation coming into the market will also bring in the supply chain, allowing for The Mandi Conundrum in more competition in the form of a more direct connect between APMC is a marketing board private mandis, so APMCs will have farmers and customers,” he says. established by each state government, to focus on improvements to ensure But APMC mandis are unlikely under which as per earlier rules farmers continue trading via the yard, to be substituted entirely as they farmers had to make the first sale says Gajera. APMC yards usually are an important medium for price of their produce at APMC’s market provide facilities like waterproof discovery. Besides, though it has yards or mandis. The objective was platforms to store produce, and been argued that farmers might to ensure farmers get fair prices and facilities for farmers to sleep and eat. obtain a higher price by selling to are safeguarded from exploitation by With farmers under no compulsion buyers of their choice, R Ramakumar, large retailers. “There are inspectors to sell at APMC mandis, the food Nabard chair professor, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, believes there is no evidence that amending the APMC Act will, by itself, improve the price realisation of farmers. In fact, he says, “The absence of APMC markets may lead to a huge void in the agricultural marketing sector, which might open up the field for acute exploitation and harassment of farmers.” 26 According to him, procurement should be expanded, larger public investments should flow into creating modern farm storage structures, and these storage systems should be efficiently aligned with the expansion of the public distribution system. “The government does not want to invest in farm storage, but leave the sector open to investment by APMC mandis, like the one in Azadpur near Delhi, will have to rethink their role by providing private players. The ECA is being improved linkages between farmers and organised clients amended since it is believed to be the reason why no private investment is in the yards to ensure traders do not supply chain is likely to evolve, and flowing into warehousing and storage cheat our farmers,” says PS Gajera, these mandis might need to rethink spheres. However, he points out, that secretary of the APMC in Junagadh, their role in providing improved Kerala had no APMC Act and Bihar Gujarat. He agrees that the reforms linkages between farmers and nullified its APMC Act in 2006. “But

es are likely to benefit farmers, but customers, since the economics work in neither of the two were there any g ma I “even with the market open, I feel out better that way. “APMC mandis major inflow of fresh investments farmers will benefit the most if they can play a facilitative and value- from the private sector,” he says. come to the market yard,” he adds. added role in connecting farmers to Apart from fair prices, farmers get organised players as well as e-markets The Way Forward imes via Getty imes T insights from traders about what sells like eNAM,” says Arindam Guha, While the reforms look good on paper, better in the market. According to partner, leader-government and they won’t translate into benefits industan industan

H Gajera, auctions in the real world are public services, Deloitte India. unless accompanied by investments best taken place in the yard. Though Hemendra Mathur, venture in infrastructure, logistical support eNAM is in place, he says, “For partner at Bharat Innovation Fund, and cold storage facilities. Jiyalal farmers to use the platform, specific an early-stage venture fund that Chauhan, who moved from Delhi anchit Khanna /

S details about the produce need to be invests in agri innovation startups to Dehradun in Uttarakhand to do

forbes india • july 3, 2020 Agri reforms

organic farming in 1996, used to sell a hurry to sell his produce as soon as in APMC mandis when he started possible,” explains Nupur Agarwal, out, but stopped after he saw the founder of Kiwi Kisan Window exploitation taking place. Currently, (KKW), which works with farmers he only supplies to his customers like Jiyalal directly to generate via home deliveries. “We used to employment by procuring fruits, sell at the weekend organic food vegetables and grains from them. mandis in Dehradun, but stopped In her opinion, these reforms never doing that since farmers would sell end up reaching the grassroots. regular produce as organic and our The current need is to improve customers started losing trust in us.” sustainable storage facilities. Private But farmgate collection remains sector companies like Adani Agri uneconomical. “There is a need “Farmers don't Logistics for instance, have been a for smaller collection centres near have money for pioneer in bulk handling, storage, villages that could be set up by logistics, and are and transportation by creating silo large corporates,” says Mathur. capacities nationwide, wherein the Foodgrains in India are usually in a hurry to sell loss of grains is negligible. Adani stored in archaic warehouses and the produce.” Agri Logistics has created a silo open plinths without any use of capacity of 8,75,000 tonnes across technology. According to Food and N upur Agarwal, Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Agriculture Organisation estimates, founde r, Kiwi Kisan Window Karnataka, Maharashtra, West nearly 40 percent of the food Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh. produced in India is lost or wasted. Agarwal of AgriBazaar adds that for With the opening up of intra-state will reach small farmers like him. farmers to sell goods to other states, selling, Jiyalal is also confident he “The reality is that an Indian there needs to be a strong network of can harvest a lot more produce and farmer does not have enough money cold-storage facilities as well, which 27 sell to other states, but he doubts the to pay for logistics and as the product is currently inadequate. There are logistical support from private firms is highly perishable, he is always in very few private cold-storage facilities in Uttarakhand, and the few times Jiyalal has paid the hefty rent to use Agri Reforms them, he has been cheated. “They Before After exchange our good quality potatoes Essential 1. Farmers unable to get better prices due 1. More private and foreign investment, with their bad quality produce. I Commodities to lack of investment in agri infrastructure since not as much regulatory interference have no trust in them,” he says. Act “Currently there are only large 2. A lot of wastage of produce, especially 2. Modernisation of agriculture during bumper harvest seasons infrastructure cold-storage facilities; what we 3. Freedom to produce, hold, move, need are smaller facilities near distribute and supply, hence less wastage villages,” says Mathur of Bharat Barrier-free 1. Restrictions for farmers in selling 1. Farmers and traders will enjoy freedom Innovation Fund. Besides, there is trade in agri-produce outside the notified APMC of choice of sale and purchase of agri- agriculture market yards produce also a need for a digital platform produce that can enable the collection and 2. Barriers on inter-state and intra-state 2. Barrier-free inter-state and intra-state dissemination of information on the trade trade pricing and produce across mandis 3. Electronic trading permitted in real-time, he adds. The reforms, 4. Separate dispute resolution mechanism for the farmers to be set up he says, are also an opportunity to use technology like satellite Farmers 1. Due to market unpredictability and 1. Empowers farmers to engage in empowered to weather dependence, agriculture is contract farming mapping for national-level planning, engage with considered risky and inefficient, both for processors, input and output management including deciding the location of aggregators, warehouse or cold-storage facilities. wholesalers, 2. Risk of market unpredictability from the large retailers, farmer to the sponsor From Dnyandev Hon to Sambhaji exporters Jaid, things in the agriculture sector 3. Reduce cost of marketing and improve have changed, but at a slow pace. The income of farmers raphic: sameer pawar sameer raphic:

hope is these reforms will give a boost g o 4. Access to modern technology f n to the sector in the right direction. I

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India Team Delhivery: (From left) Sandeep Barasia, Mohit Tandon, Suraj Saharan, Sahil Barua, Ajith Pai and Kapil Bharati

28 GET, SET, PIVOT How Covid-19 has forced a clutch of startups to move away from its core, or to add to it

By Rajiv Singh

arch 3, on board the havoc in China, where Delhivery Delhivery, a logistics startup Tejas Express had one of its overseas offices. But in unicorn backed by Softbank The train from India, with cases still in low double Ahmedabad to Mumbai digits, the situation was not alarming. Pre-Covid-19: Into institutional deliveries; was cruising at a Barua, though, didn’t want to take biggest ecommerce logistics player Mtop speed of 130 km per hour. The a chance. From the train, he went Now: Adds hyperlocal delivery passengers had finished dinner and on a conference call with 20 people were about to doze off, except for Sahil from his core team. The call ended Scale of operations Barua. Food and sleep were last on at midnight. Delhivery decided to the mind of the co-founder of India’s close all its corporate offices. R evenue: `1,642 crore in FY19; `2,760 crore in FY20 (unaudited numbers) biggest ecommerce logistics player. “From March 5 onwards, Rattling him, even at 10 pm, was a all my meetings were either Tonnage delivered: 280K+ in FY19; 1,300K+ in FY20 simple question: Should Delhivery shut on Zoom or Hangouts,” recalls down its corporate offices on March 4? Barua. It was work from home for Headcount: 23,500+ in FY19; 30,000+ in FY20

Madhu Kapparath Covid-19 cases was wreaking Delhivery for the next 10 days.

forbes india • july 3, 2020 cover story

70 percent, the alarm bells began “We are the most hyperlocal delivery to ring. “There was demand, but business in the country with no supply,” recalls Backliwal. Back in Gurugram, on Day 1 of over 7,000 distribution points the lockdown, Delhivery got down across 2,500 cities.” to rejigging its annual operating plan for the April 2020-March 2021 fiscal. Sah il Barua, CEO and co-founder, delhivery The original plan had been approved by the board just a week earlier after factoring Covid-19 as a potential risk. Cut to Bengaluru. March 25, operations to Mumbai, Pune and “The potential risk became actual risk Day 1 of India’s lockdown Chennai. “But what we ended up within seven days,” recalls Barua. Early morning, Avinash BR went pressing hard was the brake,” he rues. Some 80 days after the first on a Zoom call with three other Meanwhile, in Mumbai, a few lockdown was announced, there are co-founders—Gururaj S Rao, Arvind days before the lockdown began, few signs of the virus cooling down. M and Santosh Narasipura. Things co-founders Pradyumn Singh Thousands have died, lakhs have had turned chaotic for Clover, a and Amit Backliwal had seen the been infected, millions of workers greenhouse agritech startup supplying bounce rate jump to a staggering have gone back to their villages, and fresh produce to hotels, restaurants 70 percent at Pharmarack, a plug- scores of businesses have shuttered; and cafes. “Demand for our business and-play health care platform for many of those afloat are grappling evaporated overnight,” recounts pharma makers, distributors and with paycuts and layoffs. A recent Avinash, who had been planning chemists. Bounce rate is the rate Nasscom report stressed that 30-40 to press on the accelerator pedal at which demand for medicines percent of tech startups have either after raising over $5.5 million in is not fulfilled by distributors. In a Series A round from Omnivore January, the figure was just 8-10 Pharmarack, a B2B integrated health care platform and existing investors Accel and percent for India’s largest B2B 29 Mayfield. The plan was to expand pharma supply chain provider. At Pre-Covid-19: A plug-and-play platform for pharma makers, distributors and retailers

Now: Adds fulfilment, starts inter-city and intra-city medicine delivery to pharmacies

Scale of operations

Founded in September 2015 and backed by Patni Group’s Currae Healthtech Fund and IvyCap Ventures Claims to have annual revenue run rate of `15 crore; over 1.82 lakh deliveries in May

“Now we have orders, fulfilment and payment to offer a complete solution to distributors and retailers.”

A mit Backliwal, cof - ounder, pharmarack LOK SONI LOK

Pharmarack Co-founders Amit Backliwal (right) and Pradyumn Singh AA

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

temporarily halted their operations or are in the process of closing down; “What Covid-19 has done is changed 70 percent have a runway (cash to the structure of the company run operations) of less than three from predominantly B2B to months. Panic and pandemonium seem to be the new normal. predominantly B2C.” Barua, though, didn’t press the panic button. The SoftBank- Aavin sh BR, cof - ounder, clover and-Tiger Global-backed unicorn instead pressed the ‘pivot’ button. The B2B logistics major turned into Clover, a greenhouse Like Barau, Avninash too stayed a hyperlocal delivery player. The agritech startup calm, and started delivering directly to results were stunning. In April, the consumers. Over the last two months, Pre-Covid-19: B2B sales to hotels, company delivered over 2.5 million restaurants and cafes Clover has been supplying to over orders of medicine; 10,000 tonnes 3,500 customers. “The business is Now: Ropes in third-party logistics for of grain; and 10,000-12,000 tonnes delivery back to pre-Covid levels,” he claims. of raw material, including sanitisers, What Covid-19 has done, he adds, masks and grocery. “In June, we are is transformed a predominant B2B Scale of operations doing pre-lockdown volumes,” claims company into a predominant B2C Barua. “Now we are carrying more Started in May 2018; backed by one. And he is not complaining. Omnivore, Accel and Mayfield (essential and non-essential goods) Backliwal of Pharmarack also than what we did in February and Operational in Bengaluru and Hyderabad took a leap of faith and started since May March on a daily basis,” he adds. delivering medicines to chemists,

30

Clockwise from left (standing): Arvind M, Gururaj S Rao,​ Avinash BR and Santhosh Narasipura of Clover. It has been supplying fresh produce to over 3,500 customers in the last two months and has upskilled its employees at warehouses to handle new products

forbes india • july 3, 2020 cover story

Zypp, an electric two- wheeler sharing startup

Pre-Covid-19: Bike rentals to individuals and corporates

Now: Starts own fleet; adds hyperlocal delivery; ties up with departmental chains and kiranas

Scale of operations

Operational in Delhi-NCR; backed by IAN From 0 delivery riders in January, the number has shot up to 265 in May

From 640 scooters in January to 1,025 scooters in May

cases, the core remains intact. Take, for instance, Zypp, an electric two- wheeler sharing startup. Present in Delhi-NCR, it quickly tweaked its business model, started delivering grocery by tying up with departmental stores and kiranas, and built its own fleet of riders. Last month, it had 265 of them, and the plan is to scale up operations and riders. 31 If Zypp stayed true to its vision of keeping ebikes as the core of its business, then Cars24 too didn’t tinker with its foundation. An online used car buying platform, backed by biggies such as Sequoia Capital, Unbound and Agnelli Family and endorsed by MS Dhoni, Cars24 Zypp Founders Akash Gupta (left) and Rashi Agarwal. The two-wheeler sharing startup changed its business strategy. If delivered groceries during the lockdown by tying up with departmental stores and kiranas the wheels were oiled by business coming through its 210 outlets across doctors and patients in need of one foot in a new possible future,” 73 cities—a little under 5 percent speciality drugs. In May, it delivered he outlined in his blog titled ‘Pivot, of business used to come through 1.25 lakh orders across 15 cities. don’t jump to a new vision’. paid home inspection—it doubled Moreover, it supplied medicines to Back in India, pivots are happening down on free home inspection. The over 5,000 doctors in seven cities. in all shapes and sizes; among small results were startling. Now, home Pivot, which tech entrepreneur, as well as big players; and in most inspection numbers have shot to blogger and author Eric Ries, 80 percent. Result? Fifty percent of describes as ‘change in strategy seller traffic and 80 percent of buyer without a change in vision’ is “Covid is the traffic is back to pre-Covid days. increasingly being embraced again demonetisation Cars24 also started a new vertical by startups across the world which of two-wheelers. With the concept find themselves disrupted by the moment for of sharing a car or a bike gone for a coronavirus pandemic. In his blog logistics.” toss—at least for the next few quarters post written a decade ago, Ries or maybe years—people would prefer underlined the basics of a pivot: akash Gupta, to own their own vehicle. “It’s a shot Changing direction but staying cof - ounder, zypp in the arm for the used car business,” grounded. “One foot in the past and says Gajendra Singh, co-founder

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

opportunity to make a small change or pivot to a big opportunity,” he adds. For Kanika Tekriwal, Covid-19 has indeed thrown a big opportunity, but as a byproduct. An online marketplace for online jets and choppers founded in 2014, JetSetGo was confined to a super-premium niche. Then, as the pandemic raged, Tekriwal started chartered services for those above 55 and kids below 10 as they seemed to be most vulnerable to the virus. That altruistic beginning is now morphing into a business opportunity where people can buy seats rather than the old model of giving the entire plane or chopper. “Imagine, those who are were not flying charter are doing now,” she says. And the reasons are Cars24 reaped the benefits of doubling down on free home inspections after the coronavirus brought the country to a standstill. The company also started a new vertical of two-wheelers, not hard to fathom. Boarding a charter as people may not want to share a car or a bike in these uncertain times helps one bypass various layers of touchpoints which a normal traveller and chief marketing officer. its report. While 40 percent want encounters at airports. From home For lingerie player Clovia, which to diversify into health care and pickup to boarding from a separate started selling PPE (personal edtech, 50 percent are focusing terminal, Tekriwal is ensuring that 32 protective equipment) and masks, more on emerging technologies like passengers have minimum stress. “It it might appear as if the company artificial intelligence and cloud. (the pivot) is a big positive,” she says. changed its vision. But it didn’t. Course correction by Another positive for entrepreneurs, The mask has turned out to be an entrepreneurs, contends Anil Joshi, and thanks to Covid-19, is a sudden integral part of its business. “Masks founder of Unicorn India Ventures, killing of the negative perception will be a part of our lives now, usually happens when the product that pivoting had. Most people from whether we like it or not,” says or the service either doesn’t have the investing community would Pankaj Vermani, founder of Clovia. the right market fit or is way ahead not encourage pivoting; it was The company, he claims, sold over of its time. Pivots rarely used to widely—and wrongly—perceived 2 million pieces of PPE and masks happen due to external factors. to be a failure. The stigma made it over the last two months. In May, Covid-19 has changed the rules tough for entrepreneurs to openly Clovia claims to have done 80 percent of the game. Incidentally, there is talk about it. But not anymore. of pre-Covid business. In fact, it demand but due to the lockdown or “Hopefully, Covid-19 has shattered turned Ebitda positive (profitable the inability to deliver products or at an operating level) for the first services, startups are forced to work Cars24, an online used car time since its inception in 2012. on alternative options to stay in the buying platform Pivots, reckon venture capitalists business. The current time, Joshi and analysts, are back with a stresses, is to find a way to survive, Pre-Covid-19: Home inspection was just 5% of business, and it was paid bang. Around 54 percent of tech not scale. The survival kit might startups are looking to pivot post result in a game-changing pivot. “The Now: 80% business through home inspection, which is free; adds bike Covid-19, Nasscom highlighted in smart entrepreneur would find an vertical in Delhi-NCR; pan-India expansion soon

“Covid-19 has turned out to be a shot Scale of operations Present across 73 cities and 20 states; in the arm for the used car business.” over 210 outlets Backed by Sequia Capital, Unbound Gajendra Singh, co-founder and CMO, cars24 and Agnelli Family, Cars24 also counts former India skipper MS Dhoni as investor

forbes india • july 3, 2020 cover story

“Masks will be a part of our lives now, whether we like it or not.”

P ankaj Vermani, f rounde , clovia

Clovia, a lingerie startup

Pre-Covid-19: Sold lingerie products Now: Adds PPEs and masks, which will continue to be a part of its business over the long term

Scale of operations

Has sold over 2 million pieces of PPE and masks In May, claims to have done 80% of pre-Covid numbers in terms of business Turns Ebitda positive in May for the first time since 2012

as the most hyperlocal player in India. 33 He starts with the distribution reach: Over 7,000 points across 2,500 cities. Now comes consumer reach. The average distance of the company, he contends, from an Indian customer would not be more than 2-3 km. “So our network has always been designed as a local delivery business,” he says, adding that of late, people confuse hyperlocal to food delivery. Team Clovia: (From left) Soumya Kant, founding member; Pankaj Vermani, founder & CEO; Neha Kant, founder and CRO; Abhay Batra, CFO. The startup now also makes masks and PPEs “Our core is intact. It has gathered momentum. For the last 10 years, we the stigma,” says Mark Kahn, co-founders, hyperlocal was always have fulfilled all forms of commerce.” managing partner at Omnivore. A part of the original idea. In fact, Sandeep Barasia, chief business pivot, he asserts, is a fact of startup Delhivery—which now delivers officer and managing director, life. It’s not a dirty word. The real across 17,500 pin codes—started as agrees. “It doesn’t matter if it’s issue, Kahn explains, is the timing of a hyperlocal food delivery startup an ecommerce, B2B or B2C. the pivot. It’s more negative when in 2011. Its second tryst with It’s the same thing for me,” he you have been operating for over hyperlocal happened in 2015 when says. Every year, he lets on, the three years after raising significant the company invested in Bengaluru- company adds a new line, and the funding and realise the model isn’t based hyperlocal startup Opinio. business evolves. (That is much working. “But if you’re at the early Going back to hyperlocal in like how Naveen Tewari, founder stages, pivots can definitely transform Covid-19 is nothing but revisiting of India’s first unicorn InMobi, a startup,” he says, adding that the original idea while keeping the looks at a pivot—see interview.) ultimately great teams can build core intact: Delivery. “We didn’t If the transition to hyperlocal amazing businesses, even if the shift to hyperlocal. Demand became was seamless for Delhivery, it was original idea changes along the way. hyperlocal,” says Barua, explaining quite a challenge for Clover. As For Barua, and his gang of seven how and why Delhivery can be termed demand vanished overnight—hotels

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

“People who were not flying charter are doing so now.”

K anika Tekriwal, CEO,S jet etGo

JetSetGo, an online marketplace for private jets and choppers

Pre-Covid-19: Aircraft and chopper charter

Now: Starts seat-sharing model with JetSetCare

Scale of operations

Founded in 2014, JetSetGo is backed by former India cricketer Yuvraj Singh

Kanika Tekriwal, founder and CEO of JetSetGo. Instead of booking an entire plane or a chopper, the startup allows people to now book seats of produce handled now is nearly double compared to pre-Covid days,” and retail outlets closed and even of consumers. While earlier a few says Avinash. Another challenge 34 vehicles carrying essentials were varieties of produce were grown and cropped up in terms of upskilling obstructed during the initial days supplied, now the end consumers— staff at warehouses in handling new of the lockdown—the immediate those living in residential societies— products. While they were trained on task was to figure out a new set demanded more choice. “The portfolio video calls, several members in the

This pandemic is obviously a time to reflect 'Blitz Pivots Aren’t and make hard decisions. There is a good chance it will force many companies to pivot. But all pivots Good For Anyone' are not equal. Meet the bricolage pivot (yes, it’s French... but Venture capitalist Sid Talwar on not as fancy as it sounds). Bricolage loosely means the dangers of rushed and drastic to tinker with something. changes in business models A bricolage pivot has two parts. One, it involves making strategic changes to a business model while either maintaining the product, selling related ver the past month, I’ve had a few That’s a scary place to be in. And, yet, every day products to an existing customer base or evolving conversations with founders who have there are articles about startups considering sudden the customer base. Two, it involves a thoughtful, been running exciting startups, raised quite and massive changes in their entire business. O data-driven approach, leading to a calculated a lot of money and had big plans. I use the word There seems to be a prevalent fear within the change in direction where all sides of a startup (the 'had' not because their companies shut down, but ecosystem that startups need to find revenue founders, the team and the investor base) are because halfway through each conversation they wherever they can... irrespective of their original aligned. explained how they pivoted since the lockdown to model. And if they can’t find revenue, they’ll never get Don’t get me wrong, even these pivots are a completely different business model. And most funded again. No matter how costly that revenue is, of them went on to say they did it to show both in terms of margins and people. This is leading painful to live through. But with a little bit of luck investors that their company had the grit to thrive, companies to do a blitz pivot—essentially where and right timing, they have a better chance of and not just survive, no matter what came their entire business models are changed, normally in a success. Founders need to be bricoleurs (someone way. These conversations have sent a chill down rushed decision. And blitz pivots aren’t good for who practices bricolage) when it comes to pivots, my spine. These teams (like every other startup) anyone. even during worldwide recessions caused by had left their jobs to follow a dream. They had pandemics. Pivots test your creativity, persistence, convinced themselves and their families that these Startups are already a hard business to run. And if resilience, focus, passion and grit in the best of companies were their calling. They spent years suddenly the founder changes the mission, realigns times. A blitz pivot, especially to prove something working on making these ideas come alive. And the vision, and repositions the company in the minds to someone else, might be the best way to shut then suddenly they’re doing something else. Not of the investor, there is a good chance that business is your company down. because the original idea was faulty but because in trouble. And while it’s possible that even the most external conditions changed (in many cases for daring “Hail Mary” of pivots can deliver success, the a chances of that happening are never high. Especially if (The author is partner m the short term) and because (horror!) they feared investor backlash. it’s being done just to re-engage investors. at Lightbox Ventures) t Ver Ami

forbes india • july 3, 2020 cover story

panic. Perhaps a lot has to do with ‘ Pivot is Evolution’ his background and experience. He Naveen Tewari, founder of graduated from IIT-Delhi during the InMobi, India’s first unicorn, dotcom bust, and his two ventures on keeping the core intact in the past—a travel search engine and adding to it in 2004 which was acquired by California-based advertising major or Naveen Tewari, two words that don’t gel linked to our core capabilities. Because your one together are survival and growth. Survival, foot is grounded (in basketball during a pivot), it Exponential, and edtech company F reckons the founder of InMobi—India’s first gives you capability to do more things. This is Vriti that may have been ahead of unicorn—is all about ‘not getting out'. That’s evolution to me. In general, when people talk of what the Indian cricket team used to do a long pivot, they think that one foot is not grounded. This its time—had survived the Lehman time back. But in the world of technology, he understanding leads to a negative connotation. crisis. “So I was not scared,” he adds, the only way to survive is to be aggressive. This holds true especially in a world where On the negative connotations of pivoting says. “I have adapted in the past.” somebody else is innovating quicker than you. The issue is with the word, not with the concept. As Akash Gupta, co-founder of Zypp, “One needs to play on the front foot,” says long as you don’t use the word pivot, and you use Tewari, who is unofficially billed as India’s any other word related to it, everybody is absolutely too had adapted his ebike rental Badshah of Pivots. fine with it. In fact, everybody loves that. So if you business since its inception in 2017. Founded in 2007 as mKhoj, and rebranded as ask anybody in InMobi about pivoting, they are InMobi the next year, the Bengaluru-based more likely to frown at you, and might reply ‘We While theft and vandalism of ebikes company is backed by marquee investors, including never pivoted. Why do you think we pivoted?’ during the early part of the startup’s SoftBank. It became India’s first unicorn in 2011. Whatever be the dictionary meaning of pivot, the Though the gritty entrepreneur prefers to use the understood meaning is what confuses people. journey forced Gupta to add layers to term ‘evolution’ rather than pivot, he asserts that That’s the core issue. his core business—he started renting an entrepreneur must look to grow, not survive. “If Evolution comes because of a couple of you are only thinking of survival, you would not end reasons. First is that one is intrinsically looking at out bikes on a monthly and weekly up winning enough,” he says. And if you want to the business and asking what more can I do. And basis to delivery guys—Covid-19 made win enough, Tewari adds, then you have to play there are linear and non-linear innovations. The him discover his mojo. Gupta now differently. Edited excerpts from an interview: former is normal growth, while the latter is evolution. So in InMobi, adding marketing plans to go deep with his fleet of bikes On the art of pivoting technology, Glance and Trufactor was non-linear. It and bikers in expanding his delivery I see it (pivot) more in the form of an evolution. doesn’t mean that our core business has been Pivot is typically understood as when one stops down. It means that we added more to the core business in Delhi-NCR. “Covid has doing something, and starts doing something else. growth, which is faster now. That’s how I look at Generally this has been the definition: Somebody turned out to be the demonetisation 35 pivoting. As entrepreneurs and CEOs, one must look who was doing A is now doing B. And B becomes at adding S curves, otherwise your business will get moment for logistics,” he says. the main thing. That has been the connotation of hit badly in a rapidly changing world of technology. pivot, in general. Investors, though, sound a word It’s wrong to think that one must add new cycles The way I see it, there are two things to a pivot: of caution. “Blitz pivots aren’t good Evolution and progression. Now how I define when the old ones are not working. Today a lot of progression is doing more of the same but in a the companies confuse linear movement with for anyone,” contends Sid Talwar, better way. Evolution, in contrast, is when you are innovation. partner at Lightbox Ventures. A able to create new S curves in your businesses generally through innovation. Now this means On innovation for survival pivot to prove something to someone exponential growth as you are creating new S One doesn’t need to innovate to survive. else might be the best way to shut curves in addition to the already existing ones. Innovation is for hyper growth. Look at big companies. Take, for instance, Reliance Industries. the company down (see box). On InMobi keeping its core intact as it grew It has not pivoted, but it has evolved and created Raman Roy, father of BPO in India, In 2015, ad-tech was the only angle to our business. telecom and internet businesses, which are now We did three things in addition to the core bigger in value terms than all past businesses put though applauding the entrepreneurial business. First, we added marketing technology, but together. This is evolution, and adding S curves to spirit of those who are venturing never got rid of ad-tech which kept growing, and the existing core. I mean how many oil companies still continues to grow. That was the evolution of in the world have created an internet company? into different services or categories the core InMobi business. Second, we created None. Take Google, Microsoft and Amazon as other to keep the engine running, wants Glance, a mobile content platform. This was our examples. They kept evolving since their inception. second S curve. And then we created data And the beauty of this model is that if you create a entrepreneurs to also look at the larger management platform Trufactor in 2018. This was new S curve on the back of the existing S curve, it picture. “If you are suddenly delivering our third S curve. But all of them were still deeply takes you to an escape velocity. liquor or making sanitisers, it’s good. But is it for the long run? Does it make business sense,” he asks. At the end of team had to double up as customer was the only client. As the business the day, whatever pivot one takes, it service agents to handle queries dried up overnight, nobody had a clue needs to make financial sense. It’s not on delivery time and payments. on how to keep factories engaged. the speed at which you pivot, but the For Vermani of Clovia, the biggest “That’s how we entered into PPE speed of having control over the vision. challenge was to ensure that the and masks,” recalls Vermani, who set Barua, too, believes in speed, workers didn’t end up migrating to up a core team and within 10 days, but only when one is on the their native places. There were around work was done on a war footing, right track. “When you stay on 3,000 workers employed in various and production started. Though course,” he says, “being fastest is factories making products for Clovia. the entire business was in disarray a virtue. But when not on course, But for most of the factories, Clovia in the beginning, Vermani didn’t being fastest is dangerous.”

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

ou’re in your early 20s and you’ve just landed your first job. The first pay cheque is earmarked The Coming to upgrading the four- year-oldY phone. No matter that the new iPhone you have your eyes on costs as much as the pay cheque itself. Default Deluge After all, the cost can be split among The Covid-19 crisis is a risk that lenders never six easy-to-pay EMIs. By the end of modelled for. Default rates could rise three times, the first year, you’ve also taken loans says credit scoring platform CreditVidya for your first overseas holiday, and to renovate your parents’ home. By Samar Srivastava The bank puts you down as a model customer. Monthly salary credits point to the payments, which make up 40 percent of your salary, as being manageable. With an expected 20 percent pay increase after the first year, the loans are bound to occupy smaller share. Those who joined the company a year before you already bought their first motorcycle. That’s next on your list. Soon, you will be able to say goodbye to those 36 cramped train rides to work. But then Covid-19 hits, and half the team you work with is laid off. Your salary is cut by a fourth and, at 53 percent, the monthly loan payments are making it hard for you to pay rent. Your bank announces a moratorium and you opt in. Interest accrues but your account is still classified as good. In two years since 2018, personal loans and credit card debt outstanding had risen at an But for how long? That’s the annualised growth rate of 14 percent. The pandemic has thrown out of the window the bad loan provisioning that banks and finance companies had done prior to Covid-19 question few have answers to. Over the last five years, as traditional lending engines—credit `24,90,791 crore in April 2020, an according to Abhishek Agarwal, to companies, home loans and auto annualised growth rate of 14 percent. co-founder and chief executive at loans—had slowed, banks and finance In the same period, total bank credit CreditVidya, an analytics company companies had grown their consumer grew at 9.5 percent. Borrowers that works with lenders. His book. This included quick loans to confident about their future increased data paints a grim picture. buy mobile phones and televisions, the size of the leverage they took, When Agarwal set up CreditVidya personal loans and payday loans. faster than their growth in incomes. in 2015, it was to address a gap in The last two years had also seen the India’s household savings rate fell to a the market. Lenders would decide emergence of loan apps, through decadal low of 17.2 percent in 2017-18. on loans based only on credit scores which borrowers had to upload Banks and finance companies that provided information on past

g es their income data and were instantly have provisioned for bad loans on intent of servicing loans. If someone credited with money in their accounts. account of the pandemic, but all had borrowed and successfully paid a But, over the last three months, India’s solutions to the loans going bad loan they had a high chance of getting consumer economy has been on pause. are based on best guesses and data another loan even if they had little or According to RBI data, personal from past delinquencies. Those no income. The Covid-19 crisis has loans and credit card debt outstanding models for forecasting defaults demonstrated the shortcomings of this

ahashi / Ge tt y I ma k ahashi Ta Kuni rose from `19,21,142 crore in 2018 to are unlikely to be useful this time, approach. “You need to match past

forbes india • july 3, 2020 CreditVidya

repayment history with cash flow data India’s consuming class in April? and if you do that you have a far better Income was down 42 percent on way of modelling the probability of account of significant wage cuts and default,” says Agarwal. His company furloughs. As a result, consumption set about building these models. was down 43 percent, both on Out of the 40 million customers account of lack of avenues to spend that CreditVidya has surveyed, it as well as the need to conserve cash. took 500,000 to understand income In May, there was a 15 percent rise and consumption patterns in March in both incomes and consumption and April. They allowed for the as green zones opened for business fact that there are several Indias, “Past credit but the numbers are still much and divided customer segments below pre-Covid-19 times. into the affluent market (earning risk models Within this, the mass segment `60,000 a month, saving `23,000), of forecasting was hit the hardest. Think of it mid-market (earning `20,000 to defaults are this way. When you don’t call a `60,000 a month, saving `11,000) plumber to fix something at home, and mass market (earning `10,000- unlikely to work or don’t use an Uber to commute 20000 per month, saving `4,000). during the crisis to work, incomes for the segments Banks and NBFCs preferred to unless they are fall to zero overnight. The mass lend to the affluent and mid-market market saw a 56 percent fall in customers, while the mass market married with cash earnings, the mid-market 14 was disproportionately (50 percent) flow data.” percent and affluent 12 percent. served by fintech firms. And while the The mass market is also saving pandemic has affected each segment, more—10 percent more in April. Abhishek Agarwal, it is the mass market that has borne co-founder and CEO, CreditVidya CreditVidya’s risk assessment the brunt. “What emerges from this model points to a link between higher 37 report is that some of the impact could incomes and default rates, indicating be more medium-term than lenders among mass market loan seekers. This how vulnerable the mass segment is. are forecasting, as jobs and incomes means customers would take 30- to A person saving `30,000 a month is get disrupted, and steady-state 90-day loans at usurious (18 to 24 three times less likely to default than loan delinquencies could be higher percent) rates. They were often self- a person saving `1,000 a month. For and evolve to a new baseline,” says employed—such as delivery personnel, the mass market, the 500,000-strong Gautam Chhugani, director, Indian sales personnel or temporary staff— cohort pointed to non-performing Financials at Bernstein. He also and had no job security, but were assets (NPAs) increasing by three forecasts an increase in credit costs confident of landing another job once times, for mid-market by 1.8 times for lenders. For now, while banks and their current one was over. They’d and for the affluent by 50 percent. If NBFCs have provisioned for defaults, take new loans to pay off the previous the pandemic is a prolonged one, the they offer no guidance on what the loan, and as long as jobs were available risk for the mass market increases. quantum of defaults could be. fintech companies were happy to lend. This also points to a significant Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, the So, how did the pandemic affect slowing of the consumer economy data set analysed by CreditVidya for the next year. Agarwal points out showed a 121 percent rise (note: The Mass Market is the that a lot of fintech companies will there is no absolute number here as Most Vulnerable see their net worth wiped out and the data is for a cohort) in personal shut shop, leaving few credit options loans as Indians were feeling Default for the mass market. As for the well- confident about the future. Most of Population Income Savings Risk Rise capitalised banks and NBFCs that these loans were for consumption Mass serve the mid- and affluent markets, 359 ` 10000- 3x spending, such as buying appliances, Market million 20000 ` 4000 they have no choice but to keep

holidays, and entertainment. While trying to grow. “If bad loans increase awar Mid personal loans rose three times in 160 ` 20000- ` 11000 1.8x and the loan book doesn’t grow, the Market million 60000 value over the last seven quarters, NPAs as a percentage of total loans pay day loans increased by 11 times. Affluent 16 increase sharply. So for them [despite million above ` ` 23000 50 There was also the rise of a Market 60000 percent the risks] growing the book is still Source CreditVidya; sample size 500,000 phenomenon known as ‘loan stacking’ the only viable strategy,” he says. P sameer g raphic: I nfo

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India The New MF Paradigm Why the pandemic-induced volatility is a wake-up call to ensure measured and diversified asset allocation, and relook portfolios

By Monica Bathija

bout five months ago, the founders of Agile Connects, an Internet of Things startup, put the entire corpus they had Araised recently for business expansion plans into the Franklin Templeton Ultra Short Bond Fund. But on April 23, Franklin Templeton announced a closure of the fund along with five others on account of liquidity issues 38 in the debt papers they were holding; Agile has been left with no option but to wait. The company, which thought the funds were safe and liquid, finds itself in a hard spot as it has reserves that will only last a couple of months. “If the money is stuck for the next three years, it impacts our planning ability. Right now we have raised some invoices with our clients to pay salaries and other overheads, but if that money doesn’t come we are looking at a challenging time ahead even to pay salaries,” says Arvind Khungar, chief strategy officer at Agile Connects. (Amfi). [Credit-risk funds typically As investors continue to grapple “We are looking invest in lower-rated securities with the effects of the pandemic, (below AA-) and gained in popularity and the financial crisis and volatile at businesses because of their potential for double- markets accompanying it, it’s a with the balance digit yields]. The data also shows that wake-up call as good as any to ensure sheet, liquidity investors have moved to categories measured and diversified asset with low credit risk, allocating more allocation, and relook portfolios. and capability to to banking and public sector debt, After a massive outflow of `19,239 survive this crisis.” gilt and liquid funds. Flows into debt crore in April from credit risk funds, mutual funds rose to `63,665 crore the panic seems to have abated for in May from `43,431crore in April. ` Navneet Munot, now; the outflow slowed to 5,173 chief investment officer, “Earlier, debt funds were equal crore in May, according to the S BI Mutual Fund to fixed deposits for a section of

sameer pawar sameer Association of Mutual Funds in India investors, they conflated the two

forbes india • july 3, 2020 mutual funds

things,” says Anish Teli, managing were invested in direct stocks, this partner and fund manager at time they are there through mutual QED Capital Advisors. “Now at funds, which is a good thing,” says least people are asking questions, Anish Teli of QED. However, what they know there’s a credit risk, may be different this time around is and there is an interest rate risk, the severity of job losses and salary and they do not want to get stuck cuts, and their effect on investing in a credit risk situation.” behaviour is yet to play out. The problems with fixed income The general advice is not to funds are not new. There have change things around too much, been a few shocks in recent times, if you don’t need to. Because for starting with the IL&FS crisis in those in the accumulation phase, September 2018, followed by mutual whose goals are 10 to 20 years fund investments in the papers away, even if the market outlook of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd, “Earlier, debt remains grim for two years, it Yes Bank Ltd and the Essel Group doesn’t make much of a difference. companies going bad. April saw funds were equal But for those who have not the peaking of that risk aversion. to fixed deposits rotated their portfolios in some “In between a lot of things were for a section of time, it’s a good time to relook and done by (market regulator) Sebi, get into the large cap category and which were good for investors. investors, they index funds. “And make that the But, at the same time, they brought conflated the core, and on the satellite part you all the risk to the forefront, it two things.” can still look at maybe middle, small became visible,” says Dhirendra [caps], and then some direct stocks Kumar, CEO of Value Research, an or some sectoral bets,” says Teli. independent financial advisory firm. A nish Teli, A third of the investment in 39 managing partner and fund In fact, the risks would have come manager, QED Capital Advisors equity can also be invested abroad. to the fore even without the Covid- Millennials and first-time 19 crisis, considering the issues in investors, especially those facing the economy, the banking system quality government and corporate a reduction in income, should and NBFCs—the pandemic simply paper. In cases of such asset-liability use the opportunity to learn not accelerated the process. “Covid-19 mismatch, if a lot of investors turn to be impulsive with big spends, was not the cause of the problem, up, a credit event like the Franklin and should not waste the crisis it exposed the risks being taken in case occurs. And when investors by investing all the money they funds to collect higher AUMs (assets are unable to take out their money, can save. “If you don’t understand under management),” says Ajit they also tend to take it out from where to invest, start with a Dayal, founder of Quantum Asset elsewhere. “Everybody will say, never recurring deposit,” advises Kumar. Management Company (AMC). mind the high returns, let me get my It is, however, the retirees, who AMCs often take risks in credit risk capital back for now,” adds Kumar. are dependent on withdrawals from funds to generate high returns, but The advice right now is to invest their investments, that are going in the process, dangerous products in liquid funds and funds that own to have a difficult time especially are created. After the IL&FS shock, government paper. “Until there is an if they have retired over the last says Dayal, some AMCs restructured economic recovery, any private sector four to five years and have been a few of their products while others, paper has an inherent risk of going channelised into a balanced fund like Franklin, got more aggressive. bankrupt. So the only debt fund you or an equity savings fund as well as In fixed income funds, investors should be buying is one that owns having invested it in lump sums and have the option of withdrawing government paper,” says Dayal. risked getting in at a high level. their money anytime, but this For a retiree investing into might not be possible for all the inancial planners also think it is equity and debt, the advice is to investments the fund manager has a good time for investors to take stagger the equity portion over a made as there may not be buyers F a hard look at their portfolio period of time, rebalance annually for the debt paper these funds have. depending on their goals, and get rid and ensure that the withdrawal Markets for debt paper in India of any junk they might have collected. rate from the investment does not are illiquid except for very high “In 2008, while a lot of people exceed 6 to 8 percent. “Most of these

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

people believe that if they’re getting and public transportation. However, dividends from their investment, in the long term, with the global their investment is working, but it economy under pressure to control just might be eating into their capital. costs, large parts of operations might You can consume only the real return get outsourced and might play out in on your investment, which is return a manner beneficial to the country. minus inflation,” points out Kumar. Changed consumer behaviour He adds that in the current in a post-Covid world and how situation it pays to be cautious companies adapt to is also a factor considering the outlook for affecting allocations. “Discretionary the economy remains grim. spends might see some pent- With company earnings getting “Covid-19 was up demand in the next three to substantially dented, things might four months, but incomes will not be very rewarding in the next not the cause of not really support consumption couple of years. “Because at the end the problem, or discretionary spends in a big of the day, market performance is it only exposed way, be they travel holidays or a function of companies making white goods,” says Nigam. money and growing,” adds Kumar. the risks being “Everything that is luxury will Considering the uncertain taken in funds be cut. So every company will have economic outlook coupled with job to collect higher to think about how they can create losses, and population displacement a shampoo bottle to a sachet model due to the pandemic and the AUMs.” for their products and services. If I subsequent lockdowns, mutual am only going to sell shampoo in a fund managers too are looking at A jit Dayal, bottle, there may not be any takers companies that will come out stronger founde r, Quantum AMC because that guy’s spending power 40 on the other side while reducing their has come down. But if I convert it exposure to leveraged companies. into sachets, they will probably keep Across portfolios, whether debt consequences for a few industries on buying one sachet every week or equity, fund managers are looking —and some might not even make and I will still have some amount at low to moderate leverage. “I it to the other side or will take of growth,” points out Shah . want to ensure that whenever the a very long time to come out. He adds that companies that upturn comes, my company should Sectors like hospitality, airlines, are unable to make a transition to be surviving so that I can participate malls, movie halls belong to the online will also find it very difficult. in the upturn. Leverage is lethal and latter category while those in the “So we are trying to observe we are moving away from leveraged production sector will bounce change in consumer behaviour and companies,” says Nilesh Shah, back faster. “In the auto sector and relate it with how our portfolio managing director of Kotak AMC. personal mobility, the fear factor will companies are adapting. If they SBI Mutual Fund, too, is focused play a role at least until the health are not adapting, then it is not on the resilience of companies crisis is resolved and two wheelers worth investing with them because rather than taking large thematic and small cars looks interesting,” when the upturn comes, when or sectoral calls. “We are looking at says Chandresh Kumar Nigam, MD the post-Covid world comes, they businesses which have the balance and CEO of Axis AMC. They are also will be a misfit over there.” sheet, liquidity and capability to looking at the global trend towards Fund managers also think there survive this crisis. And where we reducing outsourcing dependence is value in looking at opportunities believe managements are taking from China which might play out that are not available in India. “The the right actions to thrive on some interesting stories, perhaps entire technology and innovation the other side of the crisis,” says not in the large cap space but in space... there are pockets of that Navneet Munot, chief investment the middle, small cap space. which we do have, what we call officer at SBI Mutual Fund. With work from home becoming as consumer internet businesses, Unlike in a regular economic the norm, the commercial real estate but the Netflixes and Amazons slowdown, where industries across sector is up for a tough time at least of the world are not listed on the the board are affected and then for a year to a year and a half, which Indian bourses. I think there’s hot K slowly come out of it, the current will also affect associated sectors some opportunity for us to start

Vikas Vikas crisis will have some long-term like office security, office stationery allocating money there,” says Nigam.

forbes india • july 3, 2020 mutual funds “Invest In Multiple Tranches” O ne of the differences between previous financial crises and the current one is that this time more people are invested through mutual funds rather than direct stocks. Greater awareness also means that people have been resilient in continuing with their investments so far. In an interview with Forbes India, Nilesh Shah, chairman of the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) and Kotak AMC managing director, speaks about the broader performance of the sector, growth in the number of mutual fund investors and on investing in uncertain times. Edited excerpts:

41 ier v a X exy exy M

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting mutual funds India

Q On creating wealth occurred, by and large the mutual fund there has been a push on the Since the mid-90s we have seen the industry has done a done a fantastic promoter to improve governance. development of mutual fund products job in managing fixed income. There as well as the distribution base, and have been challenges, but within those Q On MFs as a vehicle for over the years we have gone through challenges we have improved the financial inclusion various ups and downs. But by and capital allocation process. We have People associate mutual funds with large we have enabled fantastic wealth been able to streamline market rates, rich people, but that’s no longer the creation for our investors. Today, we our size is small, but many a times we case. When we started, we were more have more than nine crore folios, over have acted as a price setter with quick urban-centric and our distribution 2.25 crore unique investors, and a pan- decision making. And, while there are network was mainly in the top cities. India presence. Obviously our equities Even today, we are still getting a bulk in January 20 were looking far better of our money from the top eight cities, than in May 20, but most of the fund “Define your but digital enabling has helped us houses have done tremendous alpha reach out to every nook and corner of creation in terms of outperformance financial objective, India. And we have seen tremendous over benchmark indices. have a good growth in the number of investors in the last three to four years, compared q On investing in uncertain times advisor and get to the previous 20 years. Distributors Our recommendation at any point a good plan. And and other people have helped small of time has been to define your investors like maids, drivers and financial objective, have a good then execute that other employees create retirement advisor and get a good plan. And plan with three nests, providing an alternative to then execute that plan with three a money lender or a chit fund. guru mantras: Long term investment, guru mantras: Long Recently, a domestic help sought regular investment and disciplined term investment, a loan for a medical emergency and 42 asset allocation. If you have a good her employers, who had been doing financial plan, and follow the three regular investment SIPs (systematic investment plans) mantras over a period of time, your and disciplined for her, told her she already had this financial objectives will be achieved. money. She was pleasantly surprised Obviously at times like this your asset allocation.” because she never knew that her plan does get shaken up a bit. But investment could deliver this kind time and again we have seen that of return. So even at the bottom of these crises are an opportunity. On certain credit events, if you see the the pyramid, where they have very a market cap to GDP ratio, India is overall non-performing asset (NPA) limited savings and don’t have access looking cheaper vis a vis the historical ratio of the mutual fund industry vis- to formal financial investments, if you average. And if you invest at this point a-vis banks or insurance companies, give them a financial saving, whether of time, whenever the market is in or other sectors like NBFCs (non- in an equity fund or a fixed income reversion you will be able to make banking financial companies) or fund, they are able to build their nest. money. But should you put all the AIFs (alternative investment funds), money at one go because markets are we are at a much lower NPA. Q On MFs’ role in deepening trading at below historical averages? the capital market That’s not the right way to invest Q On improving corporate Clearly there was a bond market, because markets are markets, they governance equity market, derivatives market will be volatile and you never know Most of the large NPAs of the banking well before mutual funds came how markets will behave in the days system have not been able to raise into play, but over a period of time to come. So try to invest in multiple any money in the capital market. mutual funds have exercised far tranches, and be overweight in They may have succeeded once, more weight. Today, our equity equity and gold. By doing multiple but thereafter they have never markets have one of the highest tranching, you will be able to raised money. In fact, in a few volumes in terms of number of average yourself into the market. cases, foreign portfolio investors trades. We have a fairly sophisticated have invested money in those derivatives market and mutual funds Q On recent events in the companies, but Indian mutual funds have played a reasonable role in fixed income category by and large have stayed away. deepening the market and bringing Despite certain credit events that have So with money flow or capital, it at par with global standards.

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To subscribe: sms “Forbes” to 51818 or visit www.forbesindia.com/subscription or call 91-22-40019816 Restarting India ‘I Don’t Expect A Protracted Recession For India’ Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) President Uday Kotak says banks are likely to face significant NPA pain in the consumer lending space, but the country must get its investment mindset back

By Salil Panchal

44 Ltd k Mahindra Ban Mahindra k Kota

forbes india • july 3, 2020 uday kotak

eteran banker Uday businesses are getting reset? segments need to figure out how Kotak, managing This is a core theme we, at CII, the pain is going to be distributed. director and CEO of are working on. Our secretariat Kotak Mahindra Bank, and the national council of 180 q Should we write off the first sees 2020 as a year in members had meetings on June 3. half of FY21 and assume that Vtransition hurt by the “deep shock” We usually announce a GDP forecast demand and labour would come of the lockdown. Ruling out a slide and sectoral growth trends; this back only in the second half? towards recession, he forecasts that time we said it is not possible for There was complete standstill in corporate earnings and GDP growth anyone to have a correct prediction business activity in April; in May, we will pick up in 2021-22. Speaking to of GDP for the current year. In fact, saw gradual stirring. If we were a Forbes India after taking charge as we should monitor it granularly, 100 percent economy and you saw a president of the Confederation of month-by-month. We have a theme— sharp shock during the lockdown in Indian Industry (CII), he warns banks lives, livelihood and growth. April and May, the most dangerous will see the most pain—in terms of thing to do is to predict the year bad loans in the consumer lending q We are growing at a slowest 2020 on averages. We should focus space. The government, he says, pace in 11 years. Could you on objective parameters such as cannot overreach at this moment due spell out what corporates electricity consumption, goods and to fiscal deficit constraints, and argues and lenders need to do? services tax (GST) collections, road against the need to bail out a specific There will be significant loss and traffic, passenger car sales, freight troubled sector. Edited excerpts: pain in the system. The first category movement month-on-month, to tell will be individuals and businesses… us how the economy is faring. We q You take charge at a time a lot of inter-business negotiations have to look at this year as a year in when India is in its most will happen—between a lessor and a transition—a deep shock—and then challenging phase. We have no lessee, and an employer and employee, decide how we take things forward. option but to ease the lockdown to get economic activity and q Some of the Reserve Bank of 45 jobs up again although we We have to look India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy don’t have a grip over the Committee members fear it will coronavirus. Do you agree? at 2020 as a year take years to repair the economy. It is a significant challenge and a in transition—a Is recession inevitable then? once-in-a-century event. Most of deep shock—and It is hard to predict at this point the us have not encountered a situation likely trajectory of the economy. like this where a tiny virus has then decide how Certainly, I do not expect a near-term completely disrupted the way humans we take things recovery, but at the same time, I do live. It was easy to get into the forward not expect a protracted recession. lockdown, but it has a huge economic I would expect a gradual recovery cost, and it is difficult to get out over the coming year, so that starting of it. We are coming to a situation in 2021-22, company earnings and where the world is moving towards about who will bear the pain. The overall GDP are likely to start growing a different place and assumptions next part is the government, which at a faster rate. This is consistent we made of the world have changed has given a stimulus, but there is with the market expectation as well. today. The government and the a significant drop in its revenue. prime minister are realising that. After the support package from the q The government measures The original positioning was government and a drop in revenues, targeting migrant labourers, low ‘jaan hai to jahaan hai (if you are the fiscal deficit of the Centre and income and small businesses alive, the world is yours)’ and state governments combined will be are well intended. But the fresh then it changed to ‘jaan bhi, 11-12 percent of GDP, against the 6.5 fiscal impact through the five- jahaan bhi (life and the world percent that economists projected in tranche package announced are equally important)’. This is a February. In an economy of our size by Finance Minister Nirmala classic battle where we have to [$2.9 trillion], the five percentage- Sitharaman is only `1.5 lakh balance lives and livelihood. point difference is a hit of` 10 lakh crore… is this adequate? crore… the government is taking that Whether you spend or have reduced q You speak about moving shock. The rest of the shock falls on revenues, the net impact is that the towards a different place… which the financial sector. All the three fiscal deficit bloats. We are already

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

With Unlock 1.0, India has started its business activity and movement of goods and services after months. Kotak says the country will have to focus on parameters like electricity consumption, car sales, GST collection etc to determine the state of the economy 46 seeing a gap of `10 lakh crore… to believe more will be done as and take the environment for granted. As that extent, the shock is being taken when required, but we should far as the bailout is concerned, it is by the Centre and the states. More be careful to not trigger financial not in the hands of the government. needs to be done, but how do we instability by sharply increasing It depends on what the consumer balance the need for doing more the fiscal deficit and public debt. wants in the future. If you decide not with the reality that we don’t have to go to a movie hall for six months, a global currency? We have to be q Some of the hardest hit sectors that’s the choice you’ve made. There careful about doing more, but not by Covid-19—hospitality, airlines, will be a limitation to the amount of overreaching in terms of the size of tourism (which faces potential resources the country will have after our fiscal deficit where we have sharp job losses of 41 million)—have the losses it suffers. We have to ensure shocks to our external accounts. been ignored. Would you seek that what we are doing is structurally The good news is that our external a bailout for these sectors? right for the new world and be accounts are fine, but the domestic We need to prioritise sectors—first careful not to succumb to lobbies or finances need to be handled with care. protect lives and livelihood (jobs). people who are making the loudest The government should be thinking noise, whether justifiable or not. q The government has about a backstop: It should create addressed the supply side a social security net for the low- q With the moratorium on of the economy, but there is income (salaries below `25,000 repayment of loans being no trigger to boost demand. per month). We have neglected extended, it means potentially a

s How can this be resolved? health care, with just 1.3 percent of longer level of indebtedness in ge a

Im There are many demand-boosting GDP invested in health. We need the system, which is never good…

tty measures such as the cash transfers to strengthen our sanitisation and It is a fair concern that investors e

ia G to the underprivileged people and hospital facilities; trained medical staff have voiced, whether it runs the risk v

FP the credit guarantee to micro, small and e-medicine systems from here of moral hazard—where borrowers A / and medium enterprises (MSMEs). onwards. Germany could withstand get used to not paying. We need IANA L

A However, the immediate spending Covid-19 better due to its cutting- to have a proper credit culture. G R E

I by the government is limited due edge health care systems. We need I understand that the RBI has to V A

X to its extended fiscal position. I to focus more on education and not balance things due to the economic

forbes india • july 3, 2020 uday kotak

impact of the virus. But we will have Why not go raise capital? Several to take a call on which entities are Key Economic Indicators companies have already done it. If credit-worthy and which are not. Continue to Weaken my real economic need is to have In that context, I am appreciative India’s worsening GDP more risk capital, I should go out and of the government’s recent MSME GDP Growth Rate take it. If I am in a boat in the high guarantee system. [Through this 10 seas and there is a thunderstorm,

9 8.2 scheme, banks will provide `3 trillion 7.7 and if there is another stronger boat as automatic collateral-free loans to 8 7.1 that is bigger and stronger (and 7 6.6 standard MSMEs. The government 6 5.8 that is what capital does), why not 5 will also provide credit guarantee 5 4.5 4.7 take advantage of the situation? 4 to banks and non-banking finance 3.1 companies for both principal 3 q How many banks are at a 2 and interest till October 31]. Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 risk of falling away, with FY18 FY19 FY19 FY19 FY19 FY20 FY20 FY20 FY20 weakened balance sheets, poor q But the fear is come September Scour e RBI asset quality, low profitability 1, people will say they cannot and little sign of recapitalisation pay as they would have seen India’s Gross FiscaI Deficit for public sector banks? a salary cut or lost a job. How Sector after sector will see Fiscal deficit rising again bad will retail NPA get? consolidation: Companies Fiscal Deficit (as % of GDP) There will certainly be pain, and that will survive will also grow 4.8 4.5 it is always difficult to predict a 4.59 in scale—as seen with the 4.5 number. But the segment that will 4.1 telecom sector in earlier years— 4.2 see significant amount of pain will be 3.9 and weaker players must raise 3.9 the unsecured consumer, particularly 3.5 risk capital. The markets, 3.6 3.5 the urban consumer [loans]. The 3.4 as you rightly said, have a 3.3 MSME sector has been well buffeted disconnect, so corporates need 3 47 by the government and a lot of the 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019- to use that to raise capital. -14 -15 -16 -17 -18 -19 (PA) 20 large businesses which are not highly leveraged should sustain. (PA) As per provisional account q Can Indian corporates take Scour e Economic Survey My simple principle is to apply advantage of the anti-China wave Finance 101: When you are lending, or create new supply chains? Or first look at sensitive sectors and how (IBC) for a year—while offering is this just a political statement? they will sustain in a post-Covid-19 relief to weak companies— I relate to the prime minister’s era, then look at businesses with means that banks have to sit statement and use it in a broader high fixed operating costs—they on bad assets for a longer context. A self-reliant India will also face pain. And then look at period. How does it help? (Atmanirbhar Bharat) also includes companies with high debt: Equity At least a six-month window was our self-sufficiency on our health ratios on how businesses fare. required. But the year starts from care and education system, reverse And I do believe that interest March 25, 2020 [the ordinance just migration, how to create balanced charge during the moratorium should passed says no case of corporate regional growth in rural India. It is stay, which is the RBI’s view too. insolvency can take place till upon us to bring about a transition Banks and financial companies get September 24, which can be where we create a well-balanced India money from depositors and lend extended to March 24, 2021]. with strong broadband connectivity. it to borrowers. You cannot have a There is great opportunity to situation where the borrower is not q How would you explain the reset what India means. allowed to pay and the depositor, complete disconnect between obviously, must be paid. That would the surge in stock prices and q And where does one start—it create a discontinuous situation. If you the state of the economy? just cannot be like a Skill India see the crux of the Banking Regulation One of the two scenarios is or Make in India campaign? Act, it is protection of the depositors’ right; I do not know which one. Look at personal protective equipment money which is most important. On a serious note: Think of any (PPE)—India could manufacture these company facing turbulence ahead and make them available. We must q The suspension of the due to the virus outbreak and seeing get the investment mindset back… we Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code an uptick in the stock markets. cannot be cowed down by Covid-19.

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

48

Corporate Covid Responsibility Companies are channelising a big chunk of their CSR money towards the coronavirus response, leaving initiatives for other social causes scrambling to stay afloat

By Divya J Shekhar sameer pawar sameer

forbes india • july 3, 2020 csr funds

rawing from the trusts and societies set up by it, or by experience of working non-profits acting as implementation in the social sector agencies on the company’s behalf. for over 20 years, According to Sattva Consulting, and now in the tribal a social enterprise working with Dregions of Odisha and Jharkhand, NGOs and corporates to implement Liby Johnson says people in these CSR projects, over 50 percent of villages—including migrant workers total CSR funds are deployed by who have come back home from companies through non-profits. the metros—will start feeling the Data by the ministry of corporate pinch of the coronavirus pandemic “Helping the affairs (MCA) as of June, analysed by more severely only by August. nation fight Sattva, indicates that in the last five State governments had sprung years, companies have cumulatively into action since the lockdown was Covid-19 will take spent over `71,277 crore across 105,358 first enforced in March, ensuring precedence this CSR projects in various sectors. The that the public distribution systems number of companies coming under supplied food to people. Johnson, year.” the ambit of CSR and the amount whose non-profit Gram Vikas of money they spend have also seen works with about 1,500 villages a year-on-year increase (see box). Sudha Murty, to secure water, sanitation and chairperson, infosys foundation A report on the CSR outlook for rural livelihoods, says the villagers 2020-21 published by Sattva’s data had managed to get sufficient platform India Data Insights (IDI) food at home in April and May. private corporation pulled the plug studies outlays announced by the This security might not last, he on a major funding that would have top 300-odd companies by revenue, says, because of a few challenges: ensured water security in over 100 which collectively account for over First, cash income has reduced since villages in east Odisha over the `10,000 crore of the yearly CSR funds 49 public work through the National next three years, and diverted the in India. The annual CSR amount Rural Employment Guarantee money instead to PM Cares, the is pegged at around `15,000 crore Act (NREGA) and other schemes Covid-19 relief fund announced by based on an average of 2016-19. had stopped during the lockdown. Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the report, corporates Second, the 20 percent increase in “We are yet to establish connection have already allocated `7,853 crore village population (as per Johnson’s with our public sector undertaking to PM Cares and other Covid-related estimates from the regions he works (PSU) donors. They will take more measures (see box). This means that in) due to reverse migration will put time to finalise all the outlays, but only another `7,100-odd crore will be additional pressure on drinking water, have already announced hefty CSR available for all CSR projects in other sanitation, unpaid domestic labour support for Covid relief,” Johnson social sectors, provided companies for women, and housing, among other says. “The Jal Jeevan Mission was do not make further allocations to the resources. “Third, fatigue will set in supposed to be launched [by the Covid response. PSUs have made the within the government system in a water resources ministry] this year, highest Covid-related contributions, month or so, after which food supply and it was supposed to bring in a lot setting aside as much as `2,500 crore and other essential services will not of CSR support to drinking water out of their `3,000 crore budget for reach the poor easily,” he says. and sustainability, but I reckon PM Cares, and another `18-20 crore Johnson has started to aggressively that will also be affected now.” for other Covid relief measures. conserve organisational resources Under the Companies Act, 2013, “Over 50 percent of the total g es to prepare for these eventualities, India has mandated that every CSR money has already been spent along with another looming company with a net worth of at least on Covid-19 relief, and we estimate challenge: There won’t be enough `500 crore, or turnover of at least at least a 30 percent reduction monetary support coming in. Gram `1,000 crore, or a minimum net profit in company profits this year due Vikas spends approximately `22 of `5 crore during any financial year, to the state of the economy. This crore annually in social projects, should allocate at least 2 percent means there will be that much less about 35 to 40 percent of which of average net profits of the last available for CSR next year,” says comes from companies as part of three years toward its CSR policy. Srikrishna Murthy, founder, Sattva. their corporate social responsibility This money can be deployed by Another June 2020 report by Crisil

(CSR). Already, in March-end, a the company directly, or through Foundation, the charitable arm of / M int via Getty I ma Chowdhury A niruddha

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

analytics firm Crisil, estimates that Outlook of CSR Spends expenditure, as per the report, is CSR money already given away by for 20-21 divided among 35-odd traditional PSUs companies to Covid-related causes social sectors, including causes like

might be as high as 80 percent. “With *Average annual education, flood relief work, rural the notification from the MCA on CSR budget: development projects, environmental mandated activities/spending which `3,000 cr sustainability and health care [like qualify as CSR spending under Covid- oncology, infant and maternal health].

19; as well as assuming companies Potential “It is understandable that the world will continue spending around the availability for all as we have known is changing other sectors: mandatory CSR mark, allocation to rapidly due to this pandemic, and Donated to `475 cr other—even ongoing—projects could PM Cares Donated to we have to try our best to keep our fund: other Covid relief: come down,” the report states. `2,507 cr focus steady and morale high,” Covid-related causes range from `18 cr says Murty, explaining that her relief to rebuilding, explains Murthy. team will continue to monitor the This includes immediate measures Private corporates situation over the course of the year like providing personal protective and extend support accordingly. equipment (PPEs), ventilators and testing kits for hospitals, creating Survival of the fittest community awareness, distributing *Average annual The uncertainty surrounding the CSR budget: sanitisers, masks and meals to the `12,000 cr pandemic makes it difficult to poor, and building Covid health determine the exact extent to which care infrastructure, and longer-term other social sectors will get affected, initiatives like upskilling, reskilling says Abhishek Humbad, founder, and employment avenues. Other Goodera, a technology platform that Donated to PM Donated to critical social sectors that are currently Cares fund: other Covid maps and manages CSR projects for relief: 50 taking a backseat in corporate `2,817 cr over 200 corporates in India that `2,511 cr Potential priorities include water security, availability are in turn associated with over for all other sanitation, sustainability, non-Covid sectors: 6,000 non-profits. He believes that health care, arts, sports and nutrition. `6,673 cr it will all come down to NGOs that “There are several areas in which have strong on-ground networks we operate. However, helping the versus those that do not. “Corporate nation fight Covid-19 and trying our Overall support will come easily to those best to positively impact lives will organisations that prove that even take precedence over many things this with lockdowns or other restrictions, year,” says Sudha Murty, chairperson they will be able to reach the last *Average annual of the Infosys Foundation, over email. CSR budget: mile at the grassroot level,” he says. The non-profit arm of software major `15,000 cr Murthy of Sattva says non- Infosys has committed `100 crore profits could be forced to make their towards Covid relief. According to the programmes leaner. “Scholarships Infosys annual report, Covid-19 forms and school programmes may stop, the biggest chunk of expenditure Donated to PM Donated to Potential child nutrition schemes might get Cares Fund: other Covid availability for the Foundation among various relief: for all other diluted… this will obviously affect social programmes in fiscal 2020. `5,324 cr sectors: beneficiaries,” he says, explaining `2,529 cr `7,147 cr Out of a total of about `360 crore that he is already working with spent during the fiscal, Covid-related non-profits facing financial crises expenditures are approximately to see how they can effectively `73 crore, where `50 crore went scale down full-blown programmes to PM Cares, and the rest were with minimum adverse impact. spent for other relief measures. The Organisations like Tomorrow’s  PM National Relief Fund has historically received latter included protective gear and about `200 crore annually from corporate CSR Foundation in West Bengal, which health supplies to hospitals, food contributions works on primary education for s: sameer pawar s: sameer rations to the poor and financial  The PM Cares Fund for Covid response has marginalised children and skill garnered 25x, more than `5,300 crore, in a month assistance to daily wage labourers. (*Based on average of 2016-2019) development, are seeing layoffs. “A

c g raphi info The remaining `283 crore CSR Source Sattva, India Data Insights report large software company recently

forbes india • july 3, 2020 csr funds

pulled out funding for one of our women in the network switched to help if NGOs understand these focus in-school programmes, saying they creating homemade cloth masks. areas and weave a narrative around do not have money to spare… we “They have successfully supplied their cause that has a strong Covid had no option but to let go of five more than 120,000 face masks in link. For example, arts projects could people working on that project Maharashtra and Jharkhand,” talk about protecting livelihoods after paying them a month’s salary,” the company states, indicating of artisans during the pandemic, says co-founder Swaroop Ghosh. that ecommerce site Amazon has while those working in education Since the government is not expressed interest in procuring cloth for the vulnerable could focus on running any programmes currently, masks from the women, providing helping their beneficiaries adapt to funding for them has also stopped, them a source of additional income. the digital shifts in the sector.” Ghosh says. “Our only request to Companies are currently working Ghosh is working to launch an corporate donors has been to at least on a post-Covid CSR strategy, impact investment programme provide enough money to cover staff relooking at social causes, budgets to encourage corporate investors. salaries so that layoffs don’t happen. and the teams required to execute “Instead of just ‘free money for jam’, We are already taking money for these projects, says Humbad. “It will this programme will be market- operations from our contingency focussed where funders will get fund. It has been a bit of a tough some social return on investment,” time, but we have to live with it.” Year-on-Year CSR Spends he says, while stating that there is An article by advocate Sanchitta (Data as of June 2020) need for companies to have their ears Sridhar for online portal The Wire No. of Companies CSR Spends (`cr) to the ground while allocating CSR states that CSR money going to funds and go deeper into causes and government funds like PM Cares is 2014-15 16,548 10,066 sectors beyond Covid that need help. contradictory to the recommendations 2015-16 18,291 14,517 Another hopeful indicator is that made by high-level committees companies are going beyond the constituted by the MCA to study CSR 2016-17 19,546 14,333 mandatory 2 percent CSR outlays, spending in the country. The latter 2017-18 21,441 13,708 meaning that more money could be 51 has stated that the whole philosophy made available for non-Covid causes. 2018-19 24,902 behind CSR was to use the business The Crisil Foundation report states efficiencies and innovations of the 0 18,653 that about 64 percent companies spent 5000 15000 10000 25000 private sector in delivering public 20000 more than 2 percent on CSR in FY19, goods and services. The inclusion Source Sattva, India Data Insights report, MCA compared to 54 percent four years ago. of PM Cares into the CSR ambit, Humbad says individual corporate therefore, is “a convenient tool to Most-Funded Sectors employees are signing up to be soften the outcome of inadequate virtual volunteers, helping NGOs Between 2014 and 2019, the following fiscal preparedness”, the article states. development causes received most in the non-Covid sectors with Murthy of Sattva insists that corporate support essential skills. “For example, they the “intent” of PM Cares is in the will manage administration or 70 percent of total CSR money was spent on right place, but there is “an anxiety the following sectors: accounting, helping the NGO save about when and how the money that cost,” he says. Between February will be spent, and the impact it can Poverty, hunger and May, the number of people and malnutrition have on social programmes”. 5% volunteering to help with their Environmental sustainability skill sets on the Goodera platform Innovating to stay afloat 7% increased from 25,000 to 100,000. Education Many non-profits and corporations 30% Sattva's Murthy believes that this are keeping their existing community fund crunch has opened up avenues associations and projects alive by tying for capital beyond CSR, including them up to Covid-related causes for individual donors, crowdfunding, the time being. In a note shared with HNIs and family offices. “In the Rural Health care Forbes India, Tata Power explains development 17% next two-three years, non-profits that it reorganised its CSR initiative 10% will have to become more efficient, Dhaaga in which the company enabled Remaining 30 percent was spent in as many as 23 come up with more innovative, low- different sectors, ranging from arts, sports and women to make and find a market women empowerment to water security, animal cost delivery models. We have to welfare and senior citizens welfare for fashion garments and accessories. fill this gap together, and hopefully, During the pandemic, about 1,050 Source Sattva, India Data Insights report the government will also help.”

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

52

Companies across sizes and sectors are tapping into the increasing demand for hand sanitisers, but survival in a crowded market will be an uphill task

By Pranit Sarda chaitanya dinesh surpur dinesh chaitanya

forbes india • july 3, 2020 sanitisers

itin Totla recognises a particularly the smaller ventures, business opportunity have entered the market only to reap when he sees one. After the benefits of the sudden surge in dabbling in multiple demand and profit margins created small-scale ventures The Demand Surge by the pandemic, and are likely to in the manufacturing industry, Total Unique Litres of exit as soon as things normalise. N Month Buyers Sanitiser Sold​ including making e-rickshaws, January 35 42,000 renting out JCB machines and forging Same product, different metal, the businessman from Indore February 105 215,000 strategies turned towards the sanitiser market March 3,630 26,41,900 “The month-on-month growth has earlier this year. When a nationwide April 3,750 40,12,500 been nearly 4x, and these are just lockdown to tackle the spread of the May* 4,918 52,62,260 early days,” says Angad Ahluwalia, coronavirus was announced in March, *For the first 22 days of May vice president of Bengaluru-based S ource TradeIndia the 48-year-old saw people frantically Bioplus Healthcare, a 70-year-old buying hand sanitisers to prevent pharmaceutical company that has infection, and there was a huge gap Benckiser (Dettol), Hindustan launched the SterloMax brand of hand between demand and supply. Without Unilever (Lifebuoy), ITC (Savlon) and sanitisers and surface disinfectants. wasting time, Totla set up Farmacium Himalaya (Pure Hands); recognised Since mid-April, the company has India Pvt Ltd to secure his place in the businesses entering the industry sold approximately 200,000 units of growing personal hygiene market. due to the demand surge, such as N sanitisers, priced at `250 for 500 ml A report by data analytics Ranga Rao & Sons (Healing Touch), and `2,500 for five litres. “As new company Nielsen India states Marico (Veggie Clean and Mediker), entrants, we were able to develop a that as many as 152 new players Asian Paints (Viroprotek) and Emami product that was purpose-built to entered the sanitiser manufacturing (BoroPlus sanitisers); and fledgling, address the [need created by] Covid-19 market in March. Totla’s brand, small-scale players like Totla. pandemic,” Ahluwalia says, explaining ‘Dr Sanitizer’ was one of them. The There were two main reasons for that he was able to leverage the 53 businessman’s strategy to survive new players to enter this market, existing supply chain and distribution the competition was to meticulously according to Charu Sehgal, partner networks built by his company follow World Health Organization and leader, life sciences and health over the years to help the sanitisers (WHO) guidelines, which mandated care, at Deloitte India. “First, the huge reach the market more efficiently. that sanitisers must have over demand for and the relative ease in Legacy FMCG players like Marico 70 percent alcohol content to be making sanitisers made sure many who have entered this space in the last effective. One bottle of Dr Sanitizer new players entered the industry. two-odd months believe their brand contains as much as 80 percent Second, a lot of small-scale players equity and recall will help them carve alcohol, and Totla manufactures who lost their regular business a niche in the sanitiser market. The sizes ranging from 90 ml to 50 entered this space,” she says. company has launched a sanitiser litres. Declining to reveal sales or Experts, however, believe the in April under its 50-year-old brand revenue numbers, Totla explains sanitiser market is unlikely to remain Mediker, which currently offers hair that he sells to various government so crowded in the long run: While a oil and anti-lice treatment shampoo offices across Madhya Pradesh. few players are in this business with in the personal hygiene portfolio. “I know sanitiser manufacturers a vision to stay and expand, others, “While this launch was already a who add 10-20 percent alcohol but part of our plan, the timelines were claim it has over 70 percent. Those moved up in order to meet the hygiene sanitisers are easily available but demands of consumers during the don’t solve the purpose,” he tells “The month-on- crisis. The product was launched Forbes India. Given an encouraging month growth in record time, keeping in mind the initial response, Totla—whose friends has been nearly urgency of the situation and the need from the local hygiene and alcohol of the hour,” says Koshy George, market of Indore helped him with 4x, and these are chief marketing officer, Marico. the technical knowhow—is now just early days.” The company also launched Veggie planning to start retailing his product. Clean in April—a fruit and vegetable Sanitiser manufacturers can cleaner containing no harmful Angad Ahluwalia, be broadly categorised into three vi ce-president, bioplus healthcare preservatives, soap, chlorine or

segments: Market leaders like Reckitt alcohol—when it realised that people pawar sameer

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting sanitisers India

were looking for ways to sanitise [dominant] players will come back, fresh produce without chemicals. maybe not to the 85 percent market Other players in the market include share they had earlier, but they will distilleries, who have easy access to regain a significant share they have the extra neutral alcohol (ENA) that is lost,” he says. Ranga is drawing on required to make sanitisers. According the seven-odd decades of experience to a Livemint report, the consumer his company has in working with affairs, food and public distribution perfume fragrances and agarbattis ministry on March 26 stated that it to produce a range of ayurvedic had already given permission to about sanitisers certified by the ayurveda, 45 distilleries to start manufacturing yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha sanitisers, and was likely to grant “The market has and homeopathy (Ayush) ministry. permission to about 55 more. embraced local Other smaller players agree that That is how Diageo India, among capturing and retaining market share the largest alcohol manufacturers players like me in will be an uphill task. “Our strategy in India, joined the bandwagon this crisis, but in will be that which has already given in March with an aim to produce the long term, us considerable success in the first around 300,000 litres. Separately, few months [of operations],” says the company, as part of its corporate we can’t survive Ahluwalia. “We will innovate and social responsibility (CSR), is also with only this.” develop purpose-built products and donating about 500,000 litres of ENA. delivery systems that cater to the Alcohol manufacturing giant Arjun Ranga, evolving need of consumers. We Radico Khaitan also started supplying managing partner, would also like to look at specific to government authorities and N Ranga Rao & Sons areas of usages. For instance, creating primary health workers as part a product that helps in disinfecting 54 of their CSR programme. Soon, shoes as you enter a building.” however, the company realised the not because of lack of sales, but due Totla’s survival strategy is to business potential of the segment, to an unprecedented rise in demand develop PPE kits made of surgical and set its sights on a commercial and panic buying among consumers, cotton, and expand offerings to product. “The use of sanitisers where they settled for a product include disinfectants and floor will be an essential part of our without caring much about the brand. cleaners. George of Marico says the living now,” says Amar Sinha, chief Even with the growing competition company will explore innovations in operating officer, Radico Khaitan. affecting their overall market share, the health foods segment, since the The manufacturing process came established sanitiser brands stand to global shift towards them seem like a with its own share of challenges. benefit because of economies of scale permanent one. With public hygiene “Every organisation is used to a plan, and volume, given that the government standards becoming more stringent, a prediction, and a capacity they have has capped the price of sanitisers at there will be innovations in sanitiser created. Smaller organisations can get `0.5 per ml. “In future, a lot of the dispensing mechanisms too, says up and start producing whatever they demand will come from institutional Rajiv Gupta, country business leader, want, [but] for larger organisation buyers. The larger, established players health care business for 3M India, the constraints are greater,” says will be able to capture that market a hygiene product manufacturer. Sehgal of Deloitte. Some of these because buyers would want to go to The company claims to have seen a challenges included overcoming just one or two suppliers,” says Sehgal. huge surge in demand for their range transport restrictions, procuring Arjun Ranga, managing partner of hand sanitisers, for which the PPE kits for the staff, maintaining at Mysuru-based N Ranga Rao & manufacturing capacity of their plants social distancing in factories etc. Sons, producer of the Cycle brand of was “increased by about 50 percent”. agarbattis and a new entrant in the Ahluwalia believes that with its The survival game sanitiser segment, believes it is only robust R&D systems, India has the According to the Nielsen India report a matter of time when the traditional potential to create more advanced quoted above, the market share of leaders re-capture the market. “Local sanitisers and delivery mechanisms. three dominant brands—Dettol, players like me have come up during “Globally, companies can take a page Lifebuoy and Pure Hands—fell from this emergency and the market has out of Indian manufactures’ books and 85 percent in January and February welcomed us, but in the long term, develop economic solutions to serve to 39 percent in March. This was we can’t survive with only this. These and reach all segments of society.”

forbes india • july 3, 2020 Homeopathy Sweetened Pill? Homeopathy medicines such as Arsenicum album 30 and Camphora 1M are being mass distributed as ‘preventives’ for Covid-19. However, experts say, without enough evidence to support the claim, it is irresponsible to distribute or consume them

By Pankti Mehta Kadakia

55

Homeopathy medicines, such as Arsenicum album 30, being distributed free of cost under Ministry of Ayush directives in Burdwan, West Bengal

akhs of bottles of homeopaths in India, or as much as Arsenicum album 30 is a solution homeopathy pills— about `700 (£7) in cities like London. used in homeopathy, made by diluting containing Arsenicum As Covid-19 cases in India climb arsenic trioxide, typically distilled album 30 and Camphora steadily, so is the fear of contracting over three days, such that there is 1M variants in particular— the virus. In just the first week of little or no trace of the original arsenic Lhave made their way to people June, Riddhi Khursange, a corporator molecule left in the final solution. across the country and to Indians from Mumbai’s western suburb of In powder, liquid or pill form, it has in other parts of the world as Borivli, distributed 15,000 bottles of been used to treat gastric disorders, they fight Covid-19. They’re Arsenicum album 30 in the area. Each inflammation, coughs and asthma. being distributed for free by local bottle has about 70 pills; each family On January 29, the government’s hospitals, municipalities, even at member is required to take just three Ministry of Ayush (ayurveda, yoga police stations—and are selling for doses, so the bottle can typically last and naturopathy, unani, siddha and

as low as `10 per bottle through well beyond a single household. homeopathy) issued a health advisory shutterstock

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting

India Pills for the Pandemic Homeopathy drugs being used against to prevent the novel coronavirus, coronavirus: “The right approach would recommending the homeopathic be to conduct a proper scientific Arsenicum album 30: The most medicine Arsenicum album 30 as a popular variant in India, endorsed by the randomised trial to understand the government’s Ministry of Ayush as the genus prophylactic. It stated that the Central epidemicus, or choice of prophylactic, to efficacy of the said homeopathic Council for Research in Homeopathy fight against the novel coronavirus medicine,” says Dr Ramakanta Panda, (CCRH) and a group of experts “have Camphora 1M: Used in over-the-counter leading cardiovascular thoracic medicines to treat coughs and colds, recommended that homeopathy popularised by Rajiv Bajaj, MD of Bajaj Auto, surgeon, and vice chairman and medicine Arsenicum album 30 could as an immunity builder against Covid-19 managing director of Asian Heart be taken as prophylactic medicine Bryonia alba: According to a Institute, Mumbai. “It can be used report in The Hindu, a trial on 44 against coronavirus infections. It has Covid-19 patients in Agra showed if the study findings suggest so. My recommended one dose of Arsenicum Byronia alba as more beneficial concern, however, is that it should than Arsenicum album 30. The album 30, daily on empty stomach findings were submitted to CCRH not give people a false sense of and doctors are enrolling more for three days. The dose should be patients for trials security. People should not become repeated after one month by following complacent and stop following Eupatorium perf 30 and Lycopodium 30: Two the same schedule in case coronavirus generic homeopathy variants recommended by Dr the recommended preventive infections prevail in the community”. Kalyan Banerjee’s Clinic in New Delhi, to be taken in measures to avoid transmission combination with Arsenicum album 30 for 14 days; In the following months, this dosage could be continued if in containment zone, of coronavirus—maintaining and other homeopathic drugs have with doctor’s consent physical distance, wearing masks been prescribed across the country and frequent hand-washing.” as ‘coronavirus preventives’. State of people afflicted with a disease or Panda cites the example of governments of Rajasthan, Karnataka, epidemic, or a remedy that covers all hydroxychloroquine, which is under Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and the symptoms which that particular debate as a treatment in Covid-19 Kerala have endorsed its usage epidemic is capable of producing'. clinical trials. “The jury is still out too, and in Maharashtra, it is being “This genus epidemicus was on its efficacy,” he says. “It has now recommended by the Brihanmumbai declared on January 29, when the been found to cause heart rhythm 56 Municipal Corporation, government first Covid-19 case in India was problems in some patients, and hospitals and the state police. detected only on January 30,” says therefore should be administered The state police has also Dr Bahubali Shah, former president only under medical supervision.” recommended another homeopathic of the Maharashtra Council of There are two ways in which a drug called Camphora 1M, which uses Homeopathy. “The question arises, human body develops antibodies the active ingredient camphor, used where have they collected the data against a virus to neutralise it, Panda in over-the-counter cough and cold from? I’ve been asking for the source adds: Administering clinically proven remedies. This drug gained popularity of data and size of sample since Day antiviral medication or vaccines; or as an immunity builder against the 1, to no response. At a time like this, supportive treatment to improve the novel coronavirus when Rajiv Bajaj, we need transparency. Give us the body's immunity to fight. “The body’s managing director, Bajaj Auto, gave an analysis; tell us the three or four immunity can be improved in many interview to India Today, endorsing medicines that were considered, ways, including a good night’s sleep, its use. According to the report, and why Arsenicum album 30 was regular exercise, consuming vitamin Bajaj Auto set up a homeopathy picked as the genus epidemicus.” C and D, and so on—these have all centre in Pune and distributed more According to Shah, a genus been scientifically proven to increase than 67,000 bottles of Camphora epidemicus is considered a correctly immunity. However, Dr Anil Khurana 1M. Bajaj said his employees were identified prophylactic for a disease [of CCRH] himself has said that given homeopathy preventives if more than 60 percent of patients homeopathy is being used in trials as during the swine flu menace in respond well to it. “What sort of an adjuvant, and not standalone.” India 10 years ago too, and none follow-ups have been done? If I am The most effective way to prevent contracted the disease, even though to declare this drug a prophylactic, Covid-19, Panda adds, is if both Pune was the epicentre in India. I need to follow up with patients parties in contact are wearing a mask Experts, however, say there is little and see how they are reacting to and maintaining social distance. scientific evidence to support these it. It is the responsibility of the “These are protocols that can bring claims. As per the Ministry of Ayush CCRH to fix a protocol for this.” down your risk of contracting notification, Arsenicum album 30 has Repeated calls from Forbes infection to 1.5 percent. No medicine been declared the ‘genus epidemicus’, India to the office of CCRH can make that claim yet.” a term in homeopathy that refers to a director general in-charge, Dr Anil While there isn’t enough data

infographics: sameer pawar sameer infographics: 'combined symptoms of a large group Khurana, went unanswered. to promote the homeopathic drugs

forbes india • july 3, 2020 Homeopathy

as preventives in this pandemic, 30, two other generic, easily available many believers say they could still homeopathic medicines. We feel that do the job of boosting immunity, the rate of infection of something and since they are diluted, cause like Covid-19 and the parts of the little in way of side effects. body it can potentially affect are There are two issues when it best covered by these medicines.” comes to this—one is that with Even so, Banerjee is cognisant of local corporators, NGOs and so on the limited evidence available. “At giving them out by the thousands, the time the advisory came out, it was there are virtually no records of based mainly on an analysis of what where and how the pills were symptoms were known to us. But prepared; the second is a false sense “The right we also conducted our own survey of security. If not diluted to the approach would in March, to go back and see if it extent required, arsenic poisoning does have a protective effect. We got can be toxic, even causing cancers. be to conduct a responses from about 11,500 people. “If taken in the dosage that is proper scientific We found that the protective effect is suggested, there are few chances of trial to understand significant, but this is limited to our side effects,” says Shah. “However, three-medicine protocol. We couldn’t if I’m a layman, I could obtain its efficacy.” get details from outside our practice.” three bottles from three different “It’s important to point out that sources, and I might think that taking Dr Ramakanta Panda, there are limitations to a study more medicine will make me more VC & MD, Asian like this too, and we’re still in the Heart Institute, Mumbai secure. The recommended dose is process of getting it published and one a day for three days, but since going through the hoops that you they are not under direct doctor have to, to get something like this supervision, people could take it for into the public domain,” he adds. 57 15 days, even three weeks. When “Some of the limitations are you administer such a medicine to that we are all observing other a healthy person, in large doses, protective measures as well. For it has the capacity to produce homeopathy to be given all the credit the very symptoms it is meant to is not correct either. But in terms cure. It is highly irresponsible to Homeopathy: Debate of an evidence-based approach, distribute it at mass levels.” Around the World and given that it is a novel entity,  Homeopathy became popular as an alternative “One of the bigger dangers is to traditional medicine in the 19th century. However this is a small step in creating the that it leaves the field open for any the global medical community has been divided on best evidence that we have.” its recognition as a full-fledged form of discipline practitioner to advise any medicine, Banerjee adds that the doctors at  Detractors say that homeopathy drugs are too and depending on his or her sphere diluted to have any effect beyond placebo; however, his clinic have been asked to go out of of influence, ensure that it is taken,” practitioners believe it is an individualised form of their way to explain these limitations remedy that can stimulate the healing process adds Dr Kushal Banerjee, consultant to patients—by May 1, about 50,000  India leads the world in the number of people homeopath at New Delhi’s Dr using homeopathy, according to the Homeopathy patients had been given the protocol Research Institute. As per a 2007 study, 100 million Kalyan Banerjee’s Clinic, which people depend on it as their only form of care advice, along with the caveats. “It operates branches in 18 countries. actually reduces interest in taking  In 2020, a Spanish court ruled that it "is not only “Clear instructions on continuing ineffective, homeopathy can put [a person's] health the medicine, but it’s what we’re to follow public health advisories at risk" ethically bound to do,” he adds. need to follow the prescriptions.”  In 2017, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) In the third month of the said general physicians and other prescribers should Dr Kalyan Banerjee’s Clinic, by stop providing it, because they found "no clear or lockdown, as India begins to robust evidence to support the use of homeopathy March, had advised a homeopathic on the NHS", since it is typically privately practiced reopen with restrictions, there’s plan to about 15,000 patients in 18 a lot of fatigue setting in even  In France, the health minister announced that countries. “One of the components of she would phase out insurance reimbursement for among those who have been extra homeopathy by 2021. In 2018, Austria’s Medical our protocol to improve immunity, University of Vienna stopped teaching homeopathy careful. “People are tired of taking keeping in mind the symptomology to students precautions,” says Banerjee. “So of Covid-19, includes Arsenicum  In countries, including India, Dubai and the US, it somehow, taking what you think will is a widely well-regarded discipline. The Government album 30. But we’re also advising of India has given it new impetus and legitimacy protect you against the virus may Eupatorium perf 30 and Lycopodium with the setting up of the Ministry of Ayush additionally feed that fatigue.”

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India Splendid Isolation Snapshots of life in quarantine in the midst of a pandemic

By naini thaker & madhu kapparath

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The greens were replaced with a moved to a friend's home. “I had quarantine experience was quite Tanvi Hubli carpet and the golf course with a great time and felt like a part smooth. “The staff was very a hotel room for amateur golfer of their family,” she says. “But I helpful; they had a doctor on Tanvi Hubli, when she travelled really wanted to go home.” call; if we ordered something Age: 21 from Ahmedabad to Bengaluru, However, there was no clarity they would pick it up and deliver Amateur golfer and went through a seven-day on where she would be staying it to our room,” she adds. quarantine at The Leela Palace. after returning to Bengaluru. “It Things were not normal Hubli has been training in was only after landing that I was when she finally made it home. Ahmedabad for the past few given the options,” she says. “I came home after six months, years. When the lockdown was Being a sportsperson, living in a but I couldn’t hug my parents, announced, “I was living in a confined space for seven days sister or my grandmother,” she service apartment with two does not come naturally to recalls, spending time in ANVI H U BLI roommates. But the landlord Hubli. “But I was prepared.” To isolation in her room. “This is like was creating several issues, keep herself busy, Hubli would a full-stop to everything. It made including not maintaining proper either putt or work out. Apart me realise I had forgotten how

courtesy: T courtesy: hygiene,” she recalls. Soon she from the loneliness, her to enjoy life.”

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Pavit Dhillon had just finished were stuck, so there was good got to know I was selected to Pavit Dhillon his course at JetExe Aviation in company. “There was no fly on the May 13 flight back Sacramento, California, and was lockdown in the US; it was a to Delhi.” all set to come back home on stay-at-home order. So we On landing, he was put in a Age: 27 Pilot March 22, when India played board and card games.” 14-day quarantine at Le announced its lockdown. He was However, Dhillon had not Meridian, New Delhi. “I picked stuck in Sacramento for exactly seen his family for more than this hotel since it was close to two months and two days, with a year and couldn't wait to home,” he says. “The experience nothing to do. “I was done with return. “In April, the Indian was pretty amazing; they were

everything I was supposed to, embassy had asked us to serving us three meals. I O N and we weren't even allowed to register so they could keep couldn’t complain.” But, as work,” he says. Luckily for tabs on how many Indian expected, the stay was Dhillon, his landlord allowed him students were stranded and expensive, Dhillon paid `45,000 to extend his stay, but “we were wanted to come back,” he says. for 10 days. “I could have stayed paying through our nose”. There “Once the Vande Bharat mission at a government facility, but I

were other Indian students who was announced, on May 10 I chose to prioritise my safety.” T DHILL PAVI courtesy:

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India

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“This room is so depressing,” father is high risk and my clear and the lack of Priyadarshini Priyadarshini Kacker thought to parents were alone, so I decided communication was getting herself, the minute she stepped to come back.” on my nerves,” she says. Kacker into her hotel quarantine room “It wasn't the journey back I Contrary to popular belief, at Lemon Tree Hotel in was anxious about, it was the idividuals had to pay for the Ghaziabad. quarantine,” says Kacker, who flight and hotel stay, and Kacker Age: 35 Kacker was in Australia for a took the first Vande Bharat flight says it was not cheap. C K ER Landscape Architect and vacation when the lockdown from Sydney. And unlike what The only thing that kept Illustrator was announced. For close to she expected, it was packed. her going was her iPad. When two months she stayed in an She says that despite asking she saw the view from the

RS HINI KA ADA Airbnb in Gold Coast. “I was repeatedly, she was not window, she says, “It was like a happy to stay for longer, if that informed where she will have to blank canvas, and I started meant avoiding quarantine in quarantine till she reached India. drawing after months, ‘A room India,” she explains, “but my “The quarantining rules weren’t with a view’. courtesy: P R I Y courtesy:

forbes india • july 3, 2020 photo feature

Swati Ganeriwala

Age: 28 Head (accounts), Vinod Garments, Nashik

Every evening at 5.45, Swati Ganeriwala would wait in the balcony, connected to the living room, but separated from it by a glass door. It would be time for her husband to be back home, but unlike the usual hug, she’d only see him through the glass door. Ganeriwala went to visit her parents in Guwahati on March 16 and was scheduled to return on March 30. And although the pandemic had reached India, she didn’t expect things to turn out 61 as they did. “We never expected the flights to stop,” she says. “Even when they did, I had made my peace with the three-week lockdown. Then the situation kept getting worse, and after the third lockdown I was fed up.” When the flights finally started on May 30, she flew back to Mumbai and then drove to Nashik. “Of course I knew the risks and took all possible precautions, not letting my guard down even once through the journey,” she says. Once she was home, she isolated herself in a room for seven days. “Every free minute my mother-in-law and grandmother got in the day, they kept me company,” she says. “Once my husband and father-in-law were home from work, they spent all their time with me.” Ganeriwala likes having a plan and having things under control, but the one thing this experience taught her was patience and learning to deal with uncertainties.

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting India I JAIN S H RUT

When the nationwide lockdown struggling to balance work and how suffocating it is inside a Sonali was announced, Sonali Bhadani home chores. “One might think PPE kit.” The anxiety of travelling had three weeks left in her it’s easy, but it is really not,” she during a pandemic remained Bhadani notice period at Ernst & Young says. “There were days when my with her till she reached home. India, and was expecting to roommate and I were so caught “At every step, I was 62 begin her new job at Bengaluru- up with work, our only proper reconsidering the decision.” Age: 27 based startup InterviewBit on meal would be dinner.” From June 5, Bhadani was Assistant manager, finance, April 20. She had assumed Finally Bhadani took the isolated in her room for seven InterviewBit things would be back to normal tough call of flying back home to days. “Even though I am home, in a few weeks. But they only Ranchi. “We did a lot of research this situation is not easy. It gets kept getting worse. and took all the necessary very depressing at times,” she Bhadani had not expected precautions—from gloves to says. “I have a niece and a to be greeted by her new face shield—I was prepared to nephew, both one-year-old. This teammates over a Zoom call on wear a PPE kit too,” says is only the second time I am the first day of her new job. A Bhadani. “But my younger seeing them. I want this to end, week into it, she was already brother, who is a doctor, told me so that I can go and hug them.”

In the first week of March, a day in Cologne. “Not only have I Isha Shah before her flight back from learnt the German way of living, Cologne in Germany to Mumbai, but also experienced some Isha Shah had to undergo an medical tourism.” Her visa was Age: 33 Lawyer emergency surgery, and was first extended till June-end, and asked to avoid travel for at least then till the end of July. 10 days. Once better, she could Although there were travel back but would need to uncertainties, Shah has undergo institutional quarantine been enjoying her stay. Even in a government facility. “Given when things were bad, “there that my immunity was already was a lot of confidence in the very low, I decided to avoid way testing was being done, travelling,” she says, “which, in people were allowed to leave the hindsight, was a good decision. I house in pairs and it was developed some post-surgery reassuring to see people complications, and was following rules and being hospitalised again.” disciplined,” she says. The 33-year-old lawyer was In the next few weeks, Shah on holiday in Germany for two is set to fly back as soon as there and a half weeks, which turned is a direct flight to Mumbai, and into a four-month stay. “I was stay quarantined in a hotel. between jobs, and decided to “Nothing in life is certain. One come visit a friend here and day you think you are going on a Y attend the Cologne Carnival,” holiday, and then a pandemic D TOR . she says, from her friend's home R hits, and changes everything.”

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“After two months at home, with watching TV shows or quarantine for her family. "My Shivangi stepping outside my house was movies, and listening to music. mom would do video calls with a surreal feeling,” says Shivangi Two months ago, Dave had me,” Dave laughs. “My online Dave Dave, who finally took her little choice but to pack up and classes were continuing as per father’s bicycle for a spin when fly back from Boston. “All my Boston hours. So it felt like I was lockdown restrictions were relatives were in the red zone. still living there.” Age: 25 eased. “I have never seen I either had to find Being confined in a room was Student, MDes Design Ahmedabad this peaceful. I have accommodation outside my not easy. But college Innovation, Massachusetts started observing the little campus overnight, or come assignments kept her busy. College of Art and Design, things, like how people smoke back home.” And given that the Finally, getting out was a relief. Boston, USA now—they have a mask, they rest of her semester would "I would find excuses to go and remove it, and put it back on have online classes, she chose buy groceries, even if it was a every other second. It’s live to return. She landed in 5-minute drive," she says. “The entertainment." During the Ahmedabad on March 22; and roads were empty, but I would weeks at home, though, it had thus began a 14-day room drive slowly, just so I could enjoy e av y D a been an overdose of technology, quarantine for her, and a home being outdoors.” J

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Restarting photo feature India

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Kamlesh Murjani was in and interior product company negative thoughts and my family Kamlesh Dubai when countries across Artista, and booked himself on and friends were constantly in the world started announcing one of the repatriation flights. touch with me,” he says. “But Murjani lockdowns. Although he had But the fear of travelling loomed the fifth day is when the solation been there on work for close large in his mind. “I had to take finally got to me.” When he got to six months, the anxiety of the tough call because there home, it was another seven days Age: 44 not being with his wife and was no certainty of when this of home quarantine. Former head of operations, children in Bengaluru in the would end,” he explains. “I On June 5, when his Artista, Dubai midst of a pandemic was couldn't be away from my quarantine ended at 9.45 pm, giving him sleepless nights. “I family for that long.” his wife Tanvi and children wanted to be there for my Once he reached Bengaluru, got him a cake to celebrate. family,” he says. he was in a hotel for seven days. “Usually, when I come back from Murjani knew the economy Murjani's coping mechanism Dubai, I'm very excited to see was in a bad state and would was simple: To treat quarantine them. But this time I felt only get worse. Yet, he quit his as though it was a regular work emotionally drained, as though anvi mur jani

t job at Dubai-based architectural day. “I avoided all possible some war had just ended.”

forbes india • july 3, 2020 Enterprise Speed-dialling Change A flurry of investments in RIL’s Jio Platforms means the pace of evolution for all players will rise multi-fold

By Salil Panchal

ndia’s top telecom battled more stringent regulatory payments platforms. (RIL is the owner companies—Jio Platforms, hurdles and price wars, while of Network 18, publisher of Forbes Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea competing among nearly 10 players. India.) Over a fifth—22.38 percent—of and the state-run BSNL—are In about six weeks, Facebook and Jio has been sold to these investors in the midst of a phase they eight other global giants—Silver Lake for a combined total of `104,326.65 Ihave not seen in years. A series of Partners, Vista Equity, General Atlantic, crore (around $13.7 billion). investments flowing into the leading KKR, Mubadala Abu Dhabi, TPG, L Facebook—seen as a strategic player Reliance Industries Limited’s Catterton and Abu Dhabi Investment investor with a 9.99 percent stake in (RIL) Jio Platforms has led to private Authority (Adia)—announced 10 Jio—is keen on the verticals related equity firms, investment bankers and separate investments into RIL’s wholly to retail and digital payments, and analysts closely mapping the average owned subsidiary Jio Platforms, in building synergies with RIL. It revenue per user (ARPU), subscriber which has evolved from a voice-and- brings its strength of data analytics costs and churn of these firms. It is a data connectivity player to one with and the experience of building far cry from recent years when they integrated ecommerce and online platforms such as Instagram. Global technology investor Silver Lake had 65 backed China’s ecommerce giant Alibaba prior to its IPO in 2014, and RIL is hopeful the same would work for Jio. Most of the other investors are of a financial nature, though Adia, which has a special focus on insurance, could find synergies with RIL and Jio in the future. Jio’s rivals, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea—for whom cash flows and profit could come under a cloud on account of past dues to the government—are unlikely to be overlooked. American technology giant Amazon is believed to be in talks to buy a 5 percent stake in Airtel for a value of $2 billion. Talk of a potential investment by Google into Vodafone Idea is also doing the rounds, though

both Airtel and Vodafone Idea s have denied such developments. g e Connectivity is the backbone to growth engines such as community, content, commerce, currency and capital, in order to build a digital technology matrix, says Greyhound The fresh interest in India’s telecom space continues to be driven by the potential of internet Research, a digital and technology

usage and consumption per user research and advisory firm. These e E m / Gett y I ma / Ey Sumit Yelpale

july 3, 2o2o • forbes india Enterprise

are the areas that Jio and Airtel, which have the financial muscle, Jio Platforms vs Bharti Airtel: A Glimpse of Some Products

have covered and compete in with a Category Jio Platforms Bharti Airtel vast range of products (see table). Connectivity “Reliance’s strategy has been Smartphones Co-branded devices Co-branded devices vertical integration, by owning assets and portfolios, essentially Fibre to homes Jio Fiber Airtel Xstream Fiber the supply chain end-to-end,” says Mobile broadband 4G 4G Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder and chief Content executive of Greyhound Research. Learning eEducation Shaw Academy Airtel, backed by SingTel, the largest Music JioSaavn Wynk Music shareholder in holding company Entertainment Jio Cinema, JioTV Airtel Xstream (content from Zee5, HOOQ, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Bharti Telecom, has grown in size Hotstar) through partnership-led strategies. Commerce Backed by entertainment content Consumer electronics Reliance Digital, Jio Digital Life Airtel Stores from partners such as Zee5, HOOQ, Groceries JioMart Big Bazaar partnership Netflix, Amazon Prime and Eros Workplace collaboration JioMeet Video, audio conferencing, Now, Airtel’s Xstream and Wynk— software partnership with Google for G-Suite which competes with JioSaavn—will Currency continue to drive growth in the Online payments JioMoney wallet, Jio coin Airtel Money wallet coming quarters. JioSaavn, a market Capital leader, announced a special offer for Payments Bank Jio Payments Bank Airtel Payments Bank June to get brands to advertise on it, Source Greyhound Research after LinkedIn’s former director for marketing solutions, Virginia Sharma, 66 joined the streaming platform in May. Total Subscribers (mln) ARPUs (`): On the Rise With the country under lockdown Jio Platforms Bharti Airtel Vodafone Idea Jio Platforms Bharti Airtel Vodafone Idea for 10 weeks, telecom had remained 160 450 154 one of the backbones of activity, 150 as people increased the usage of 140 135 400 135 voice calls, home broadband and 132 131 130 129 128 video conferencing applications to 130 126 123 128 communicate and continue with 350 120 122 120 business activity while working from 110 105 104 home (WFH). Just a few months prior 300 100 108 107 109 100 104 to the Covid-19 outbreak, telecom 92 88 89 companies had announced a steeper- 250 90

than-expected hike in tariffs for 80 pre-paid plans in December 2019. 200 Q1FY19 Q2FY19 Q3FY19 Q4FY19 Q1FY20 Q2FY20 Q3FY20 In May, Airtel reported an 8.1 Q4FY20 Q1FY19 Q2FY19 Q3FY19 Q4FY19 Q1FY20 Q2FY20 Q3FY20 percent jump in revenues at `23,723 Q4FY20 Source Companies Source Companies, Motilal Oswal Securities, crore, its highest in at least 30 * Vodafone Idea is yet to announce its Q4FY20 earnings Jefferies India quarters, led by strong ARPUs, which firmly indicate that it will be able Make-or-break phase by the potential of internet usage to bridge the widened revenue gap “This is the time to put a shot in the and consumption per user, even as with Jio. During the first four weeks arm; it is the make-or-break period,” Indians—backed by cheap data plans, of the lockdown, Vodafone Idea has says Gogia. Earlier there was no lead inexpensive mobile handsets and upgraded 66,000 cells (a geographic player but now Jio has emerged an insatiable need for content—are area that is covered by a single as the new incumbent, leading in upgrading to 4G networks. Of the transmitter) with more capacity across both revenues and market share. 1.1 billion subscribers of telecom India, and it is on course to complete “The pace of change has now risen services, only 55 percent use the its network integration—as part of manifold due to its presence.” internet. But data consumption per the Vodafone India and Idea Cellular The fresh interest in India’s Indian is high, at 11 GB per month, merger—by end of June as scheduled. telecom space continues to be driven according to data by Nokia this

forbes india • july 3, 2020 “Reliance’s strategy telecom has been vertical integration, by February. “This is why investors such owning assets required towards upgradation of as Facebook and others are betting and portfolios, 4G networks, Vodafone Idea is not big on India,” says Isha Chaudhary, comfortably placed, considering that director at Crisil Research. essentially the both parent companies Vodafone Since March, home broadband supply chain Group and Idea Cellular are unlikely and improved Wi-Fi and bandwidth end-to-end.” to pump in fresh money soon. levels have become essential due The Supreme Court has asked to increased video conferencing, Sanchit Vir Gogia, telcos to file individual affidavits webinars and streaming of live events. founder and chief executive, detailing the roadmap they Zoom, WhatsApp and Microsoft Greyhound Research propose to clear the dues. Teams have emerged as the most When the Vodafone India and frequently used online communication Idea Cellular merger was announced tools in the Covid-19 world, according in 2018—it will be completed by June to Voice&Data. Jio has already end—it was the largest telecom firm started to promote WFH through Jio companies selling their products or in India, with 408 million active Connectivity and Microsoft Teams. increasing units to this captive base.” subscribers and 41 percent of the The Jio-Microsoft alignment is According to Dentsu Aegis revenue market share. It has since “similar to how Microsoft started its Network, a global ad and marketing lost 10 percent market share. “Vodafone engagement with Ola”, says Gogia. services group, the digital advertising Idea will continue to shrink to retain Critical among all elements will be industry is set to grow to `58,550 crore a 15 to 20 percent market share on how Facebook’s WhatsApp develops by the end of 2025, clocking a CAGR a pan-India basis, and India will in India, its biggest market, with over of 27.42 percent. Though digital become a 2.5 player market over the 400 million monthly active users. advertising rates for buyers have next few quarters,” says Dhamija. WhatsApp has signed a commercial dropped in the past two months, they Vodafone Idea declined to comment agreement with Jio—through its are likely to improve in June and July. on its future strategy, being in a silent ecommerce venture JioMart—to boost While the focus is on Jio’s evolution, period. A company spokesman says: 67 Reliance Retail’s commerce business. Airtel—with its deep pockets, and a “Vodafone Idea is moving to a new From an ordering platform, the aim steady subscriber base—cannot be operating model, which is leaner, agile is to provide a payments solution displaced. Its wireless revenues and and more cost-efficient.” It will see on the same app. But WhatsApp ARPUs grew faster (see box) than Jio’s its pan-India presence of 22 circles will have some catching-up to do in the March-ended quarter, and “it being clubbed into 10 clusters. with Google and Amazon, which reinforces our view that Bharti may It will need to focus on these already have digital payment apps. have closed the gap with Jio on revenue clusters—where in some areas it is trends, and market share between the the leader—and try to ebb the loss Digital advertising: The two players should not diverge here of subscribers by investing more in new market on”, says Manish Adukia of Goldman 4G network. Gaurav Dua, head of With Jio gaining leadership position Sachs. Airtel’s stock has gained 25 capital market strategy, Sharekhan among subscribers and Airtel percent year-to-date at the BSE. by BNP Paribas, says: “There is scope stabilising its position as a worthy rival, To repay government dues, for it to improve cost efficiencies global technology giants understand Airtel had raised $3 billion through by cost-optimisation and investing the need to invest in these digital a qualified institutional placement in re-farming of spectrum [re- platforms. Despite huge databases, and a foreign currency convertible deploying spectrum and re-allocating telcos have little or no capability to bond in January. Airtel maintains it it to others].” He pegs Vodafone process and drive digital advertising. has paid off its outstanding adjusted Idea’s enterprise value to be at a 25 “In India, these technology giants gross revenue (AGR) dues, which percent discount to Airtel, in terms find a large and captive customer base, it estimates at `13,004 crore, but of valuation, which factors in the which is the largest market left for is only a third of the department uncertainties relating to outlays. them in the world, especially since of telecom’s (DoT) assessment. In the near future, tariffs will all of them got cut out of China,” continue to rise and ARPUs too will says Rohan Dhamija, head (Middle Fight for market share improve as customers spend more. East and India), Analysys Mason, With higher capital outlays in So, will networks remain neutral? a global consultancy and research the form of government dues— The debate will continue. The next firm. “There are synergies that estimated to be `58,250 crore by the 24 months will decide the new can be driven by these technology DoT—and additional investments direction the industry will take.

july 3, 2o2o • forbes india Enterprise

Abhilasha Purwar and her brother Kshitij—working out of a basement in Gurugram—are laying the A Bloomberg foundation to build a Bloomberg for the environment. Founded in 2018, their company Blue Sky Analytics collects raw environmental data For Green Data from public and private sources, Blue Sky Analytics collects and processes environmental uses its technology to decipher data that can be used by governments and companies to the data and makes it user friendly before offering it to potential buyers, help deal with situations arising out of climate change including governments, insurance companies, health care providers By Manu Balachandran and agroforestry companies. Blue Sky Analytics was the winner of $360,000 in prize money at MIT Solve, an impact-focussed initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in May. “A health care company may need to provide medicines in case of severe air pollution and plan its supply chain based on the crisis,” says Purwar, 29, who is CEO. “Similarly, insurance companies need to make decisions 68 based on environmental risks. We aim to be a platform that can provide all kinds of environmental data that is easy to understand. We are building the Bloomberg for environment data.” The focus on environment is now more crucial than ever. In the past year, the world witnessed the Australian and Amazon forest fires apart from numerous cyclones and unpredictable weather patterns. India ranked 5th in the Global Climate Abhilasha Purwar and her brother Kshitij founded Blue Sky Analytics in 2018 Risk Index 2020, prepared by Bonn- based think tank Germanwatch. In n the early 1980s, soon after His eponymous Bloomberg LP 2017, it was the second most affected he was sacked as a partner at has become one of the world’s country in terms of casualties related Salomon Brothers, Michael largest financial information and to extreme weather. According to Bloomberg knew what he media companies. The Bloomberg the World Health Organization’s had to pivot to. Data was terminal has over 325,000 users global ambient air quality database, Ifast emerging as the new oil. It was with subscriptions costing between 11 of the 12 cities with the highest all about providing accurate real- $20,000 and $24,000 annually. It is levels of small particulate matter time data to help decision-makers, a powerhouse of data and research (PM2.5) are located in India. “To corporates and traders in their on companies, financial instruments deal with the climate change quest for profits. Over the past four and exchanges from all over the crisis, we need to have important decades, economies have boomed and world, which helps traders, analysts data… we can’t solve it without corporate fortunes grown, and the and executives make financial adequate data sets,” says Purwar. gamble has paid off. Today, Bloomberg calculations, compare investments, The company crunches terabytes is the world’s 16th richest man with analyse and make decisions. of complex data from numerous a fortune of over $60 billion. Inspired by the business model, satellites owned by Nasa, European

forbes india • july 3, 2020 blue sky analytics

Space Agency and various private She then went to Yale University “That way, we are terrible founders.” providers before doing multiple levels as a Fulbright scholar to graduate The global geospatial analytics of processing and advanced analytics in environmental management. market is expected to reach on it through its proprietary artificial The turning point came in $175 billion by 2027, according intelligence-enabled infrastructure. 2018 when Purwar read about the to Hyderabad-based Stratistics Already, two products, Breezo, massive pile-up of vehicles on the Market Research Consulting. Earth an app that helps study air quality Yamuna Expressway near New Delhi observation technology generated data across days, months and years during winters. “That shook me $7 billion in 2018 and the global from all pollution control boards and I kept thinking about what we air pollution monitoring market in India, and Zuri, a platform to can do,” she says. That’s when she is expected to reach $5.5 billion measure and monitor farm fires joined hands with Kshitij, who had by 2024, according to market and stubble burning in India, have dropped out of college but was a self- intelligence firm BIS Research. been launched. Blue Sky Analytics taught developer and programmer, “We don’t want to put a new is in the midst of building a database to build Blue Sky Analytics. terminal out,” says Purwar. “We will on forest fires, underground water “We figured that there were a lot work in the API fashion. Terminals levels and the storage capacity of of gaps in air quality, especially when happened because it made sense lakes, among others. It has started you move out of the urban centres. in those days. The relevance of providing environmental data to Similarly, access to data on a lot of environmental data, for instance, is the governments of Delhi, Madhya other environmental parameters that the Australian fires had a direct Pradesh and Maharashtra. such as the number of trees or impact on the country’s GDP. That “Our vision is to build the underground water was missing. had a direct impact on business and world’s largest spatially and That’s when we looked at geospatial there are lakhs of funds that trade in temporally continuous dataset on data and there were a lot of nuances the Australian commodities market. key environmental parameters and that it could offer… that’s been a If we can put out these indicators, transform the monitoring, diligence powerful driving force,” says Kshitij. they can make informed choices.” and risk assessment systems in Purwar has used her personal Over the next five years, the 69 India and globally,” says Purwar. savings to fund this. “We are brother-sister duo is looking to target Blue Sky Analytics also won the more interested in the impact and revenues of $250 million in their quest AI Innovation Challenge hosted technology than revenues,” she says. to build a billion-dollar venture. But by Schmidt Futures, it won’t be easy. “In India, the foundation run by the monetisation of data is former Google CEO Eric a big problem,” says Jatin Schmidt, in addition to the Singh, founder and managing Copernicus Masters Social director of Skymet Weather. Entrepreneurship Challenge “What they are doing at the Space Oscars event definitely has potential and in December 2019. The promise. But, say in case of company raised angel funding water, because it is entirely from investors, including government controlled, the Shobhit Shukla and Rahul buyer will be the government Agarwal, co-founder of and that will be a challenge. location-based data analytics Hence monetisation company Near, and Dalberg can be troublesome.” Asia partner Gaurav Gupta. “They are a bunch of high Purwar and Kshitij, who functioning nerds who can is chief technology officer, bring about a solution to a grew up in Ghaziabad near global problem,” says Gupta s) New Delhi. After graduating of Dalberg. “This is a solution in 2012 from IIT (BHU), that needs to exist in the Varanasi, Purwar worked world. A strong Indian brand with the Abdul Latif Jameel is solving a global issue… it c An a lyti S ky A (Blue Poverty Action Lab and is all about packaging the Derived from satellite data by Blue Sky Analytics, the images reveal was consultant to the the reduction in nitrogen dioxide levels over Delhi and Mumbai data and adding value to it… ministry of environment. during the lockdown as compared to the same period last year that makes it relevant.” B S Courtesy

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Cross Border The Man Getting America Back On Track As the world grapples with how to make travel safe in the age of coronavirus, private equity billionaire Wes Edens is betting $9 billion that America’s transportation future is passenger rail

By Alan Ohnsman & Antoine Gara

houting over the noise Even a couple months ago, that downright crazy, especially since it of diners at a Mexican was audacious talk from the casual, comes with a $9 billion price tag. restaurant on the floor of a sandy-haired 58-year-old who Edens’s vision: Tax-exempt casino, buyout billionaire made his fortune with Fortress bonds to create high-speed train Wes Edens has come to Las Investment Group and who co- lines linking Orlando to Miami and SVegas, one of the cities least friendly owns the NBA’s top team, the Las Vegas to Southern California. to mass transit, to talk about passenger Milwaukee Bucks. In a post-Covid He sees a service modelled on the rail. “It’s not like I had Lionel train world, as people settle in for a Paris-to-London Eurostar and is so sets in my basement,” he says. “I period of minimal travel, especially confident the plan will work that he’s 70 wasn’t a train nut, but I love riding on if it involves being squeezed among put more than $100 million of his own trains. It’s my favourite form of travel.” others, a bet on train service sounds money into it. If things go right, his trains could haul nearly 20 million passengers in 2026, generate annual revenue of $1.6 billion and operating profit of almost $1 billion a year. “Great fortunes are generally made by solving the most obvious problems,” Edens says. “Drive from Miami to Orlando with your family; drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. It’s a bad experience.” So is the money pit known as US passenger rail. Amtrak, since its creation in 1971, has consumed $52 billion of public funds and never made money. Its best year was the $30 million operating loss it reported in 2019. But inside those numbers, bloated by mandates from various members of Congress to run coast- to-coast operations in a country with little appetite for it, there’s a bright ges silver lining: Amtrak’s high-speed Acela service along the congested I-95 G etty Im a corridor between Washington, New York City and Boston earned $334 Wes Edens, co-founder of Fortress Investment Group, is betting on tax-exempt bonds to create million in operating profit last year. In

Drew Angerer/ Drew high-speed train lines linking Orlando to Miami and Las Vegas to Southern California other words, find the right regions and

forbes india • july 3, 2020 wes edens

Sunshine Station: West Palm Beach is the current terminus for Wes Edens’s Brightline service to Miami. “We’ll know how it does in 2023.” passenger rail can work wonderfully. “The lack of passenger travel by train in this country is a travesty,” Edens says. “It’s a gigantic opportunity.” His role model: The 19th-century industrialist Henry Flagler—co-founder of Standard Oil with John D Rockefeller—whose rail projects essentially made the state of Florida economically viable. Edens and Fortress took over Flagler’s South Florida rail line for $3.5 billion in 2007, and as his ambition blossomed, he pitched its potential to governors on both coasts. The effort paid off. He secured tax-exempt bonds over the last two years to expand his Brightline rail service from Miami capital,” he tells Forbes. “If there’s between Miami and West Palm Beach north to Orlando, a project with total sufficient incentive to ensure that the next year. Its sleek yellow-black- construction costs of $4.2 billion. In the [projects] will get built and can grey-and-white Siemens trains chug April, he won a $600 million private- be moneymakers, there are investors along at a top speed of just 79 miles activity allocation from California. Up and entities in our system of capital an hour. Brightline coaches feature to $2.4 billion worth of bonds from that want longer-term investments.” soft white-and-blue interiors, roomy that award, provided to California by Edens’s grand plans are compelling; seats and free Wi-Fi. Passengers book the federal government, can in turn his modern Florida and West Coast through its app or at digital kiosks, and 71 be sold to private investors. If all goes trains mean thousands of construction company president Patrick Goddard, as planned, by 2023 the train will be jobs when they’re most needed, a Dublin native with a luxury- whisking passengers from Las Vegas considering the unemployment and hotel background, says premium to a far-flung Los Angeles suburb in economic carnage wrought by Covid- customer service is a priority. 85 minutes at speeds of up to 200 19. But his track record suggests But it’s far from a moneymaker. miles an hour. The $5 billion desert delivering them isn’t a certainty. Last year it carried just over 1 train also snagged private-activity After owning Flagler’s railroad for a million riders, with $22 million in financing from the federal government dozen years, the return for Edens and revenue and a $66 million operating worth $1 billion and is awaiting a Fortress investors remains uncertain. loss. That doesn’t concern Edens, bond allocation from Nevada. According to Forbes’s analysis of who says the current operation is “His ideas are so big,” says friend public pension and securities filings, just a taste of what’s coming. and Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Edens and Fortress ploughed about A big moment will arrive in 2022, Buss, a co-owner of Edens’s Cincoro $2 billion of equity into their rail bet, when Brightline opens 170 miles of tequila brand alongside Michael struck at the apex of the 2007 real new track north to Orlando, funded Jordan and the owner of the Boston estate and buyout bubble, and they’ve with $2.7 billion of tax-exempt bonds Celtics. “We need thinkers like that yet to recoup all that cash. Staring and investor cash. Trains travelling in this country, people who see down a near-total loss on his career— up to 125 miles an hour will haul possibility and opportunity, because and his rail wager—at the market passengers between Orlando’s airport we’ve kind of lost that as a country.” bottom, Edens has spent a decade- and Miami in about three hours, an His public-private financing plus quietly clawing investors back to hour faster than by car. The ridership model is also exactly how big-ticket even. Now, any meaningful next act target is 6.6 million people in 2023, infrastructure will get built, says hinges on his train bet paying off. the first full year of service. Brightline former HUD secretary and San Florida-based Brightline is the also has a branding deal with Richard Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros, starting point. Funded in 2017 with Branson’s Virgin, renaming its who chairs a firm that specialises $600 million in private equity and Miami station Virgin MiamiCentral in securing funds for such projects. tax-exempt bonds, the only private in 2018, and is in talks to add a “There’s pioneering work being done US passenger line began operating a second Orlando station at Disney of a financial nature to unleash private 67-mile service in the dense corridor World and an extension to Tampa.

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Wes Edens’s wes edens Cross Border proposed train lines could carry “Wes is a spirited investor and has a nearly 20 million selling it for over $1 billion in 2018. true pioneering spirit with these major passengers in 2026 Fortress pressed this idea, buying investments in US infrastructure large portfolios of ailing subprime and, in the case of Miami, real mortgages to service from AIG and urban regeneration,” Branson tells Citigroup, which it also exited in Forbes. Virgin’s deal with Brightline 2018 at a $3 billion–plus profit. hasn’t included any investment. performers, and Fortress became a “We went into the financial Markets have been more sceptical. giant in hedge funds and managing crisis high on helium,” says investor After raising $1.75 billion in high-yield complex pools of debt. Assets soared Michael Novogratz, Edens’s former tax-exempt bonds at a whopping 6 25-fold over a five-year stretch. partner. “Wes did a lot of really percent-plus coupon in April 2019, Edens outraced billionaires such as crafty things” to claw his way back, Brightline’s debt trades below par. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman he adds. “He kind of salvaged what “Even though the early results and Henry Kravis of KKR by taking would have been a real disaster for are somewhat delayed and some Fortress public in February 2007. investors and his reputation.” people have criticised them as a Its shares soared 89 percent on Unable to corral large amounts of disappointment, it’s still in an early their first trading day; Edens and money for buyouts from pensions, stage of the ramp-up,” says John V his partners became billionaires. Edens found the cash by turning Miller, head of municipal fixed income The coronation was premature. Fortress into a financial alchemist, at Nuveen, a holder of $1.4 billion, or Fortress descended into freefall as shuffling assets around and conjuring 80 percent, of the project’s total debt. Edens, armed with $9.4 billion of six public companies in a six-year Edens’s West Coast plan is 180 buyout funds raised in 2006 and 2007, stretch. He spun out four new listed miles of track connecting Las Vegas made mistake after mistake. He bet firms between 2013 and 2015 that and Apple Valley, California, a on a subprime lender, Nationstar manage assets in media, mortgages, high-desert city 90 miles east of Los Mortgage, just before defaults soared, senior housing facilities and golf Angeles whose claim to fame was and pressed an $8.9 billion buyout courses—and which pay Fortress 72 being home to silver-screen singing of casino operator Penn National hefty fees. Edens also shifted a large cowboy Roy Rogers, his wife, Dale Gaming, costing the firm a $1.5 infrastructure fund into a vehicle Evans, and his trusty horse, Trigger. billion termination fee when Fortress called Fortress Transportation Edens bought 300 acres there for a pulled out. Even a wager on skiing— and Infrastructure, which houses train station and parking structure. Fortress’s 2006 takeover of Intrawest, rail facilities and aircraft leasing Trains on the line will be fully electric the owner of Whistler, Steamboat and operations and was listed in 2015. In and run alongside Interstate 15. Squaw Valley—was a catastrophe. 2019, he created yet another public In contrast to California’s highly When the 2010 Vancouver Olympics concern, New Fortress Energy, with criticised publicly funded high- arrived, Edens was warding off a burgeoning liquefied natural gas speed rail project, state treasurer foreclosure threats and working to business and a goal to supply hydrogen Fiona Ma sees no local risk if it sell assets like Whistler. From 2008 for electric-power generation. flops. “There’s no hit to California through 2010, investors pulled $12.8 The moves yielded Edens taxpayers,” she says. “It’s just the billion from Fortress, which posted unheralded windfalls and new allocation of [federal] bonds.” $3.2 billion in combined losses during fee streams. When Fortress sold The trim, 6-foot-1 Edens navigated the crisis, and its stock plunged. itself to SoftBank in 2017, earning an unlikely path to his new-age Edens spent years salvaging bad Edens and his partners a pretax industrialist vision. The grandson of investments. “It’s hard to express how $1.4 billion, 40 percent of the fees a homesteader raised near Helena, difficult 2007, 2008 and 2009 really it earned that year were paid to Montana, he was educated at Oregon were in the business,” he recalls. Fortress by the companies Edens State and cracked into Wall Street With his back against the wall, he had devised. The pandemic hit many in 1987 at Lehman Brothers. After got creative, embarking on a 12-year of them hard. But the newer ones, making partner, he left in 1993 for odyssey to make his investors whole, particularly the rail and energy fledgling bond manager BlackRock leaning on his skill for making money business, are now his focus. before founding Fortress in 1998. in lowbrow areas of finance such as “At this point in my life, I’m more Entering 2002, Fortress was mite- subprime lending. He repositioned of a builder,” Edens says, adding, sized, with just $1.2 billion in assets, failing bets like Nationstar Mortgage, “upgrading our nation’s infrastructure but it grew quickly. Edens’s first two which became a servicer of subprime and building high-speed trains can buyout funds, raised amid the dotcom mortgages as banks exited the be this generation’s Hoover Dam and bust, were among Wall Street’s best troubled business, eventually Tennessee Valley Authority.”

forbes india • july 3, 2020 asapp

Intelligence Agents Normally, humans train artificial-intelligence systems to replace them. ASAPP’s software trains customer-service reps to be better humans

By Alan Ohnsman and Kenrick Cai tock Shutter s

73

ASAPP CEO Gustavo Sapoznik at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2016. Sapoznik’s company uses AI to make call centre executives efficient at a time those for banks, airlines etc are overrun with queries from customers facing the pandemic

f you’ve ever felt your blood flier number to a specific itinerary. customer-service software. boil after sitting on hold for “Imagine that cognitive load, Sapoznik remembers just such a 40 minutes before reaching while you have someone screaming scene while shadowing a call-centre an agent . . . who then puts at you or complaining about agent at a “very large” company (he you back on hold, consider some serious problem, and you’re won’t name names), watching the Ithat it’s often even worse on the swivelling between 20 screens to worker navigate a “Frankenstack” other end of the line. A customer- see which one you need to be able patchwork of software, entering a service representative for JetBlue, for to help this person,” says Gustavo caller’s information into six different instance, might have to flip rapidly Sapoznik, 34, the founder and billing systems before locating it. among a dozen or more computer CEO of ASAPP, a New York City– “That was an eye-opening moment.” programs just to link your frequent- based developer of AI-powered The problem has only gotten

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Cross Border

worse during the pandemic. Call in the loop is also what sets ASAPP centres for banks, finance companies, apart, although it’s competing in the AI 50: America’s airlines and service companies are same call-centre sandbox as fellow AI being overrun. Call volumes for 50 listees Observe.ai of San Francisco Most Promising ASAPP’s customers have spiked and Cresta, which is chaired by AI Artificial- between 200 and 900 percent legend Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford since the crisis began, according professor who greenlit Google’s Intelligence to Sapoznik. Making call centres self-driving car programme. Companies work isn’t the sexiest use of cutting- ASAPP’s focus is natural language edge AI, but it’s a lucrative one. processing and converting speech According to estimates from to text using proprietary technology Forrester Research, global revenues developed by a group led by a for call centres are around $15 billion founding member of the speech Abnormal Security a year. In all, ASAPP has raised team for Apple’s Siri. Its software Cybersecurity $260 million at a recent valuation then displays suggested responses or Scans inboxes for malicious emails. of $800 million, per data from relevant resources on a call-centre AISERA Pitchbook. Silicon Valley heavy agent’s screen, minimising the need Workflow Software hitters, including Kleiner Perkins to toggle between applications. Automates IT, sales and customer-service tasks. chairman John Doerr and former Sapoznik and his engineers also Cisco CEO John Chambers are on studied the most effective human AMP Robotics ASAPP’s board, along with Dave representatives, trying to replicate ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING Strohm of Greylock and March their expertise into ASAPP Makes robots that identify and sort recyclables. Capital’s Jamie Montgomery. software via machine learning. Clients include JetBlue, Sprint and That software then coaches Anduril Industries satellite TV provider Dish, all of call-centre staff on effective ways Defence Builds surveillance systems for 74 whom have signed up for multi­year to respond to customer queries and national-security purposes. contracts contributing to ASAPP’s tracks down critical information. estimated $40 million in revenue, If a caller asks how to cancel Anyscale Software Development according to startup tracker Growjo. a flight, for example, ASAPP Helps software developers make ASAPP has drawn this investor software automatically pulls up machine-learning apps. interest by flipping artificial helpful documents for the agent to intelligence on its head. For years, browse. If a customer reads a 16- ASAPP Customer Service engineers have perfected AI to digit account number, it’s instantly Assists customer-service agents perform repetitive tasks better than transcribed and displayed on the in real time. humans. Rather than having people agent’s screen for easy reference. Atomwise train AI systems to replace them, When things go right, companies Health care ASAPP makes AI that trains people using ASAPP technology see Discovers drugs with medical potential. to be “radically” more productive. the number of calls successfully “Pure automation capabilities are handled per hour increase from 40 Aurora Automotive [used] out of an imperative to reflect percent to more than 150 percent. Makes software for self-driving cars. costs, but at the expense of customer That can mean lower stress for experience. They’ve been around call-centre workers, which in Biofourmis Health care for 20 or 30 years but they haven’t turn reduces the high turnover Monitors patients’ health using wearables. really solved much of the problem,” associated with that line of work. Sapoznik says. ASAPP’s thinking: “If A licenced pilot with a fondness Blue Hexagon Cybersecurity we can automate half of this thing for classical music who studied Detects network or cloud cyberattacks. away, we can get to the same place by math at the University of Chicago, making people twice as productive.” Sapoznik first applied his coding Cerebras Systems The company is a standout on skills to his family’s real estate and Hardware Builds computing chips for AI use. Forbes’ second annual AI 50 list of financial business in Miami. “I’d been up-and-coming companies to watch, doing some work in investments Cresta rated highly for its use of AI as a core where you build machine-learning Customer Service Assists customer-service agents in attribute by an expert panel of judges. product capabilities to trade the real time. Its focus on using AI to keep humans markets. The impact there is that

forbes india • july 3, 2020 asapp

Dataiku Krisp Technologies UiPath Software Development Communication Software Workflow Software Develops tools for enterprises to build AI Removes background noise from calls. Creates bots that carry out repetitive apps. processes. Lemonade DataRobot Financial Services Unity Technologies Software Development Sells insurance using bots. Software Development Makes software for companies to develop Provides software for app or game AI models. Lilt development. Productivity Software DeepMap Assists human language translators. Upstart Automotive Financial Services Produces 3D maps for Moveworks Partners with banks to price loans. self-driving vehicles. Productivity Software Resolves IT tickets autonomously. Vise Domino Data Lab Financial Services Software Development Nuro Offers financial planning and management. Provides tools for data scientists. Automotive Produces self-driving delivery robots. Viz.ai Doxel Health care Productivity Software Observe.AI Analyzes stroke risk from brain images. Detects and tracks construction-project Customer Service problems. Analyses customer-service calls. Zebrium Productivity Software Drift Pony.ai Detects and resolves software problems. Productivity Software Automotive Builds chatbots to automate customer Makes software for self-driving cars. interactions. Recursion Drishti Health care Productivity Software Discovers potential drugs there’s a number that goes up Creates data sets by digitising human for rare diseases. or goes down,” he says. Merely actions in factories. making money didn’t excite him. 75 SafeGraph Sapoznik hopes optimising call Embark Trucks Database Software Automotive Creates data sets by tracking commercial centres is just a start for ASAPP, Creates software for self-driving trucks. spaces. which he founded in 2014. He’s ExtraHop Scale AI searching for similar “gigantic- Cybersecurity Software Development size” business opportunities Detects cloud cybersecurity threats. Helps engineers speed up with “brokenness and tonnes of AI development. Fiddler Labs interesting data”. He thinks ASAPP can do that because it’s built Software Development Shield AI Helps companies build and monitor AI apps. Defense like a research organisation—80 Makes mapping drones for national percent of its 300 employees Genesis Therapeutics security. are researchers or engineers. Health care Discovers drugs with medical potential. SigOpt “The exciting thing about ASAPP is Software Development not so much what they’re going after Ghost Develops software for enterprises to build now, but whether or not they can go Automotive AI models. Puts self-driving tech into conventional cars. beyond that,” says Forrester analyst Synack Kjell Carlsson. “They, like so many Gong Cybersecurity of us, see the incredible potential of Productivity Software Spots cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Analyses sales conversations. [using] natural language processing Textio for augmented intelligence.” Hivemapper Productivity Software Summarising ASAPP’s potential, Database Software Gives suggestions on how to improve Sapoznik draws on his experience Turns video footage into 3D maps. writing. as a pilot—in aviation, automation Icertis TuSimple has transformed the cockpit. “It’s Productivity Software Automotive increased safety from a pretty Analyses businesses’ contract risks. Builds self-driving trucks. dramatic perspective, and it Karius twoXAR hasn’t gotten rid of pilots yet,” Health care Health care he says. “It’s just taken away Looks for pathogens in blood tests. Discovers drugs with medical potential. chunks of their workloads.”

july 3, 2020 • forbes india Cross Border Optimism Rules Scottish money manager Baillie Gifford didn’t see the pandemic coming, but a positive attitude toward the overpriced momentum stocks in its $245 billion portfolio turned out to be perfect for life under lockdown

By Antoine Gara

Patrick T. Fallon / Bloomberg via Getty Images hen analysts and portfolio managers pitch ideas at Edinburgh, WScotland, investment firm Baillie Gifford, there’s one rule everyone must follow. For the first 20 minutes, anyone speaking about the idea has to be positive, contributing only to the bullish case for the stock. Say anything critical and you’re swiftly escorted from the room. The optimism rule is designed to 76 thwart what the partners believe is a natural tendency for smart people to be skeptical and shoot down ideas prematurely. But these days the rule takes on even more meaning as despair over the pandemic spreads. Like nearly everyone in the Western world, the firm’s 1,317 employees are no longer able to congregate at its headquarters, where an imposing sign over the entrance reads: ACTUAL INVESTORS THINK IN DECADES. NOT QUARTERS. “One of the things we feel is absolutely incumbent on us at this moment is to encourage the companies we back to be brave,” says James Anderson, 60, a co- manager of Baillie Gifford’s flagship Baillie Gifford partner James Anderson believes in encouraging the companies they back strategies and a 37-year veteran of to be brave the 112-year-old investment firm. landscape fraught with risks. But staying power—and it doesn’t mind Baillie Gifford has gone so far as to among fund managers, Baillie parking its investors’ money in stocks mail letters to its portfolio companies, Gifford, with its $245 billion under that would make value investors encouraging CEOs to forestall layoffs management, is an outlier. The firm seasick. Here’s a sampling: Zoom, the and cost cutting. It even offered new pays little attention to traditional now-ubiquitous video-chat company, capital so they could maintain their valuation metrics such as earnings which has a price/earnings ratio of growth plans. per share or price/earnings ratios. It’s 400; ecommerce upstart Shopify, at It’s an unusual stance for a large singularly focused on three things— 50 times revenues; online furniture asset manager to take in a business growth, competitive advantage and merchant Wayfair, which lost

forbes india • july 3, 2020 contrarian • investing

$1 billion in 2019, double that of the Little Big Picture prior year. But these very stocks, plus a good number of the 30 to 50 others Auld Reliable held in each of their 14 mutual fund Baillie Gifford’s home base—Edinburgh, Scotland—can rightly be called the portfolios, are exactly the companies wellspring of modern economic theory. In 1776, Edinburgher Adam Smith benefiting from existing trends published his timeless classic The Wealth of Nations. Even over the past 15 accelerating during the crisis. years, Smith’s work has been outsold by few other business books—save for that modern retelling of acquiring and dispensing wealth: Freakonomics. Name a hot coronavirus stock, and Baillie Gifford discovered it and 2.7 million 3M copies built a massive position before the virus spread. The firm has long- 2M held multibillion-dollar positions in 1M Alibaba, Amazon, Tencent, Microsoft 287,000 274,000 106,000 17,000 and Netflix. Newer buys include Freakonomics The Wealth Century Free to Choose by Das Kapital Zoom, Covid-19 vaccine hopeful by Steven Levitt and of Nations by Thomas Milton and Rose by Karl Marx Stephen J. Dubner by Adam Smith Piketty (2013) Friedman (1867) Moderna, digital health upstart (2005) (1776) (1980) Teladoc and online textbook seller S ource N PD BOOKscan Chegg. It’s a large shareholder in Wayfair, which first plunged as Covid- 19 spread, then rose eightfold when now. Quantitative investing is all emerging Japan. sales skyrocketed as quarantined the rage, but the Scottish firm is When the internet stock bubble customers made home improvements. moving in the other direction, trading popped in 2000, Baillie Gifford Baillie Gifford is also a top holder of little and spending its research suffered a setback, but as investors surging Covid stocks Grubhub and budget sponsoring literary prizes, fled companies like Amazon, the Peloton, the cycling platform many are investigating new philosophical ideas firm backed Jeff Bezos’ vision. It was using to burn off their “quarantine 15” and endowing university chairs in Amazon’s remarkable resilience and 77 weight gain. genetics and computational biology. success that birthed the firm’s think- Baillie Gifford’s returns to investors Based in Edinburgh’s 18th-century happy-thoughts-first, be-critical-later in 2020 have been nothing short of “New Town,” a short walk from the approach. Its timing was perfect. miraculous. Scottish Mortgage Trust, city’s medieval “Old Town,” Baillie Technology giants like Amazon, the $10 billion flagship Anderson Gifford is too big and too old to be Google and Microsoft are now co-manages, and a newer Long-Term dismissed as simply lucky. The firm carrying the S&P 500. “We started Global Growth Fund with $40 billion was founded in 1908, shortly after the noticing that big companies got better in assets, are up about 20 percent year Panic of 1907, by Colonel Augustus and got stronger, and their returns got to date, beating the S&P 500 index Baillie and barrister Carlyle Gifford. greater as they grew, rather than the by 30 percentage points. Both have The colonel had made his name reverse,” Anderson says. posted similar average annual returns fighting in the Second Boer War, while “If you can just hit one or two of over the past five years, more than his partner, Gifford, later became those exceptional companies that doubling the index. The firm’s newer known for helping finance Britain’s really drive markets over the long funds centered on US companies World War II effort by selling the run, then they’ll pay for the inevitable driving “Positive Change” have also crown’s trove of overseas assets, mistakes,” says Tom Slater, 42, who done well, climbing as much as 25 largely to investors in the US. co-manages some flagship funds percent. Even funds that are down One of Baillie Gifford’s first trades alongside Anderson. By 2012, the have trounced their benchmarks. was to lend to tyre makers, believing firm latched onto emerging trends While private equity firms and Henry Ford’s pioneering Model T like cloud computing and Asian tech corporate chiefs have spent the past automobile would revolutionise the leaders like Alibaba and Tencent. decade making companies lean and world. After World War I, the firm Following the crowd for Baillie leveraged, Baillie Gifford’s stock decided America was a compelling Gifford has led to some big misses, pickers ignore all that and seek out “emerging market,” and built positions including Eike Batista’s ill-fated companies investing in research in railroads including Union Pacific Brazilian oil company OGX, Vestas and technology. They particularly and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Wind Systems, LendingClub and Nio. like projects that might not be Fe, eventually investing 20 percent It also holds stakes in troubled Airbnb immediately profitable but could of its assets in the United States. In and luggage maker Away. But wins propel the economy a decade from the 1960s, it was an early investor in like its 100-fold return on Amazon,

july 3, 2020 • forbes india contrarian • investing Cross Border

Ch ris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tom Slater, partner in charge of Baillie Gifford’s US Equity Team, co-manages some flagship funds alongside Anderson

78 16-fold return on Tesla and a 17-fold Trust holds most of Baillie Gifford’s says it works with Amazon on gain on Naspers, the South African private investments, including sustainability and worker conditions, conglomerate that owns 31 percent of stakes in Stripe, Ginkgo Bioworks, encourages Google to pay more in Tencent stock, have more than made the biological engineering pioneer, taxes and voted against what it up for its dogs. and CureVac, the Bill Gates–backed viewed as rich executive-pay packages Some $35 billion of Ballie Gifford’s coronavirus vaccine firm President at Apple. capital is invested in China. Big Trump reportedly wanted to buy. The What about the billions Baillie holdings include surging delivery Scottish trust has risen fivefold over Gifford has reaped from its investment companies like Meituan-Dianping the past decade. Among its mutual in Tesla, whose owner, Elon Musk, and budding ecommerce platform funds available to US investors, Long might be the poster boy for bad Pinduoduo. In Europe it owns Term Global Growth and US Equity corporate governance? According HelloFresh, a meal-kit delivery Growth have performed best. to Anderson, Baillie Gifford grew company, and the Amazon of Latin Baillie Gifford proudly embraces concerned about Musk’s “pedogate” America, MercadoLibre. ESG (environmental, social and Twitter battle during the 2018 rescue London-listed Scottish Mortgage governance) investing. The firm of children from a cave in Thailand, as well as his infamous “$420” tweet How to Play It about taking Tesla private, which led FAANG Stocks of Tomorrow to SEC sanctions. But it still voted in favour of Musk’s recent $50 billion– Company Bullish Case plus incentive package, the largest potential payout in corporate history. Promising treatments for disorders like Denali Therapeutics Alzheimer’s. Says Anderson, “I think it’s Tencent game distributor, ecommerce Sea Ltd. ADR incumbent on us to back the platform for Asia. extraordinary appetite for beneficial Global payments platform—think Paypal Adyen NV and Square in one. change and to look past any bumps in Boom times ahead for this office- the road.” Ecolab cleaning-products firm. Proving that optimism can pay, Reliance Industries May become the Amazon of India. so long as you don’t sweat too S ource Baillie Gifford many details.

forbes india • july 3, 2020 ForbesLife interview ‘I am happy I’m going digital; it’s the future’ Filmmaker Shoojit Sircar talks about adapting to new situations, the likelihood of theatres bouncing back post-Covid-19, and what 79 makes Amitabh Bachchan special

By Kunal Purandare

hoojit Sircar inadvertently found himself Q You seem to have attempted a new genre with in the midst of Cyclone Amphan in Gulabo Sitabo. How did the idea come about? Kolkata in May. “It went through my It’s a new territory for me, for sure. The first idea house… it was scary and chilling,” says the came from Juhi [Chaturvedi, the film’s writer] and filmmaker, who went to his hometown we kept working on it. Yes, you can say it’s a new Sin the second week of March, and has been living genre because it’s the first time I’ve tried satire. It’s there since, following the nationwide lockdown that a world of several people, including a landlord and came into effect later that month. The other storm a tenant, who come from an economically lower he did not see coming was when he announced the strata of society. They are struggling, and somehow release of his latest film Gulabo Sitabo on Amazon manage to live their lives in Lucknow. The film Prime Video. Theatre owners were miffed at his focuses on their lives, their relationships and their decision, while the industry contemplated the characters. The camera will actually penetrate their pros and cons of a digital-first release at a time minds, issues and homes. when theatres are shut and uncertainty looms large because of the coronavirus pandemic. Q You reunite with Amitabh Bachchan, after In an interview with Forbes India, Sircar— directing him in Piku. What made you approach director of films such as Vicky Donor (2012) and him, and what makes him special as an actor? Piku (2015)—explains the rationale behind his He was always on our radar. While we were move, gives his take on the future of entertainment writing the film, we had informed him that we in a post-Covid-19 world, and remembers his would approach him. The only question was

friend Irrfan Khan, who passed away in April. whether he would accept the offer… I was not sure. Prime Video zon a

Edited excerpts: Thankfully, he liked the script. His speciality is that Am

july 3, 2020 • forbes india ForbesLife interview

he completely trusts the director and his vision. film. There is nothing beyond the film… the film His biggest gift is his meticulous engagement, dictates everything. I told them there is nothing whether it’s with the costume, looks, dialogue personal in this. If we were not under a lockdown in delivery, location or the background score. Amitabh April, the film would have released in theatres. Bachchan has an aura of his own, but he is one of the finest with his co-actors. He is the best for Q Is it any different, say, when it comes them... he is so giving. to promotions etc, when you release a film first on a digital platform? Q When did you decide to go for a I hate promotions. I am happy if there are less digital release of the film? promotions… it’s a tiresome process for me. At this It was only when we crossed the theatre release moment there is a lockdown, so any release would date [April 17] that we decided we should think have been the same. But I think it’s the same… about having a digital release. We wanted to close nothing changes. this and move on to our next film. Even now, it’s uncertain when the theatres will reopen. A lot of Q As a filmmaker, are the jitters any different our technicians depend on us, and so we took this compared to a theatrical release? call to release the film on June 12. The situation I don’t have to bother about the box office where demands this and we should adapt to it. people will hound me with numbers every day. I’ve made a film the way I want to and I am happy Q This is a new experience for you. Will that it is releasing, so that’s a big relief. The second you be open to this in the future? relief is that I don’t have to decide an interval point. I have taken the plunge and am glad that I did. In terms of experience, the film is not going to I am happy to have experimented and will wait lose anything. Yes, watching a filmin a theatre is a for the results. Amazon is a huge platform… the different experience. I cannot guarantee that... but movie will release in around 200 countries. I’ll I can definitely guarantee the kind of film that you 80 see how it goes and then take a call on what can expect from my stable. I can do and what I cannot in the future. Q Will theatres bounce back Q So, this was a feasible decision once the lockdown ends? given the circumstances… Of course they will bounce back, but we will have Yes, it makes complete sense. It was a practical to see how much time that takes. The fear, the decision. I am happy that I am going digital as it is hygiene aspect… all such things will matter. The fear the future. Sircar’s will slowly fade away and theatres will eventually Gulabo Sitabo bounce back. Q But theatre owners have expressed their starring Ayushmann disappointment. What would you tell them? Khurrana Q And digital platforms and theatres will coexist? I understand their point of view, but I will tell them and Amitabh Yes, they will coexist. Cinema is a medium where Bachchan they should understand my point of view as well. will have a you watch a film in a theatre with a lot of people. The situation is such… I make one film at a time digital-first That’s why it was made… the idiot box came later. release on and a lot of people in my production house are June 12 But the good thing is that televisions have flat dependent on me. We do whatever is best for the screens today and the picture and sound quality are good. So if you have a good TV or a laptop with nice headphones, and keep the lights off… that viewing is also interesting. It doesn’t take away much, but yes, the 70 mm experience is different.

Q At what stage is your next film, Sardar Udham Singh, and will its release get pushed ahead? We have finished shooting the film. It’s in the post-production stage. Yes, the release date will be affected. The industry will be in a state of confusion when it opens up again. It has experienced a huge loss, as have other industries and sectors. There will have to be some guidelines, otherwise there will be

forbes india • july 3, 2020 ‘ Shoojit’s decision to make what he wants to make is the defining factor of his work’ Amitabh Bachchan talks about his latest release, and the evolution of film-making Q What attracted you to the script and character of Gulabo Sitabo? Shoojit Sircar. My attraction was him; he was the script, he was the character!

Q Since you have worked with Sircar before, what do you like about his work and style of direction? Shoojit’s decision to make what he wants to make is the defining factor of his work. You could have suggestions, inputs, different viewpoints during the narration of the idea, but you must be prepared to understand that his stance on creativity shall be final. And it has been proved time and again that his finality has brought great results.

Q How was your experience of working with Ayushmann Khurrana? He is a most accomplished competent talent, of enormous capacity. 81 Q What would you say have been the major Factors relating to ease and difficulties in the technological changes in the way movie is made? workings are subjective in nature. In the 51 years of From shooting on film to digital cameras, recording my working in the profession, several changes have sound in studios to on-site recordings, post- occurred… one can compare them, but if you have production processes etc. How have these changes decided to accept them, and accept you must if you made the work of actors easier or more difficult? wish to continue working, then the worry of whether I think you have enumerated the changes experienced they are easier or greatly difficult really is quite in the making of films in your question itself, and they immaterial. are factual and correct. ● Jasodhara Banerjee a bottleneck of films, and they will release together. exhausting. I don’t get time to watch anything, but I It will have to be sorted out. managed to see some documentaries.

Q Will shooting be the same again Q You lost your friend Irrfan Khan during this in a post-Covid-19 world? period. Have you come to terms with the loss? There will be proper guidelines regarding that and He is a huge loss. As a friend, I cannot forget protocols will have to be maintained. But surely, him so easily… he was so lively and such a nice in the beginning it’s not going to be easy because human being. Not only me, but everyone else shooting is a chaotic affair. There are 100 to 200 also feels it’s a personal loss. If I am watching people even for a small shoot. So, there will be something on television, I feel he is going to come diktats and behavioural changes. If this virus stays out of the screen. It is difficult to come to terms with for long, we will have to adapt to new ways the loss. of shooting. Q What next? Q What have you been doing during the lockdown? My immediate focus will be Sardar Uddham Singh. hot K

I am working so much at home that I have got a But I am going to take it easy. That’s the lesson that I s a back pain. I am doing a lot of household work… it’s have learnt. Vik

july 3, 2020 • forbes india ForbesLife Business Pivots thoughts 

Bettmann / Getty Images Patience and perseverance have a

g es magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles Getty Ima vanish. —John Quincy Adams

Leaders grow; they are not made. —Peter Drucker

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. shutterstock —Henry Ford

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. —Amelia Rinehart

82 When we are no In any given moment, we longer able to change have two options: To step a situation, we are challenged to change forward into growth or ourselves. —Viktor Frankl to step back into safety. —Abraham Maslow Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, A pivot is a change you are not innovating in strategy without a enough. change in vision.

shutterstock —Elon Musk —Eric Ries shutterstock

The biggest risk is not In the past, jobs were taking any risk. In a about muscles, now world that’s changing they’re about brains, but really quickly, the in the future, they’ll be only strategy that is about the heart. guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. —Minouche Shafik —Mark Zuckerberg

If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be An entrepreneur is It is during our darkest like this forever. Is that someone who jumps off moments that we must good news? Courage is mastery of a cliff and builds a plane focus to see the light. fear, not absence of fear. on the way down. —W Somerset —Aristotle Maugham —Mark Twain —Reid Hoffman

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