‘Businesses that are digitally astute now are recovering stronger’ : Manishi Sanwal

What kind of patterns do you see when it comes to your client spends on technology post Covid?

We are clearly seeing an escalated level of interest in utilizing technology for business growth. There is an awareness that new possibilities are emerging in business communication, digital marketing, and use of data analytics for customer relationship management, demand forecasting, sentiment analytics etc. Digital transformation, which long was in the back burner technology is now being taken more seriously.

This, however, is still not translating into spends at this point of time. This is understandable as almost everyone is fighting a bigger battle to re-establish their operations. Over time as businesses open, we would enter a hyper-competitive world due to demand-side slowdown. The companies, who are engaged, digitally transformed and using the advanced technology would find themselves to be stronger to fight back.

 Going forward what kind of trends do you see?

It's a demand-side slow down and recession. For the next few months, we would see more demand and therefore excess supply. We would get into a hyper-competitive world where everyone would be fighting to get the attention of those few who now want to buy. The supply chains would become erratic as different parts of the supply chain may get in a lockdown at different points of time. The customer on the other hand would have had a loss of income and would encounter new emotions ranging from fear to anxiety.

The customer would evaluate every purchase decision on two counts:

a) the relative importance of the purchase of the category and,

b) relative risk of getting infected.

Products, Stores and businesses would be categorized on these two dimensions to create a list of how & when sales would come back.

As a tech player what would be your recommendation to brands/retailers on catering to the post Covid shopper better?

Accept the fact that it would be a difficult next few months. The problems could be many from a list of low demand, more competition, excess discount, inconsistent supply chains, erratic closures and many more. Technology as it stands today is equipped to make one a smarter business and ensure less pain in these days. One should accept and adapt the technology for its ability to be better. As long as one works in that direction, one would become a leaner, better, smarter organization.