The Sound of Inevitability

It is now more than 4 months since humanity is grappling with this pandemic. Nations, economies, businesses and people at large are slowly adapting to the new normal and trying to make sense of the uncertainties.

It would be futile exercise to try and predict the life, demand, business profits in coming months.

We would touch upon a subject with a different perspective.

We come across people (especially businessmen) complaining about the downturn and that too, a totally unexpected one, due to this pandemic. Yes, we have seen, established restaurant brands in metros required to close down because they could not survive with revenue down at 20% and cost still at 80% of the normal. So are few other companies/plants eventually facing the inevitable. 

Remember the scene at the underground metro station in the movie The Matrix. Did Mr. Anderson, finally give in to the inevitability as projected by Agent Smith ? No, he turned around the situation. 

Agreed, he was the hero and that was the movie- that too a fiction. 

In real life, we may not be heroic but can we think like a hero – a messiah. In business context, especially the SMEs, these are really the testing times. (As per G.A.M.E – a organisation focussing on mass entrepreneurship under the able guidance of Mr. Ravi Venkatesan – 30-40% of the enterprises (about 6 crore in number) are facing the cash crunch so severe that they are now on the verge of collapse. 

So we can either run away from the inevitable, or we can take it head on. Or we can simply deflect it. We can try to use momentum of the incoming inevitability and try to ride it or deflect it. 

Remember the scene from the movie Bahubali – the wild bull with its both horns on fire is running towards Bahubali who is standing beside Devsena. He doesn’t take it head on- although he is equally powerful to do so. He simply changes direction and uses the momentum of the bull.

Again, that’s a movie and he was “the” Hero. 

In real life, that too in a business context, can we use the momentum of the forthcoming change – the change which people are adopting fast and look for the opportunities suitable to our competencies ?

A dine-in restaurant has seen the people turning away and is finding it difficult to sustain the revenue. The restaurant owners have to take a cue from these fast changing preferences and look at the spending pattern of the customers. 

We have come across the fabricators who were earlier undertaking high value boiler and sugar factory works, are now required to undertake plain vanilla work for erection of large sheds, and other agri works.

Likewise, the entrepreneurs can utilise this downtime to introspect and assess one’s own strengths and extrapolate the opportunities they would be able to tap. 

• They can tap more portions of the consumer’s spending basket.
• They can tap newer customers with the same set of men, machine, material and money. 

We can’t avoid the inevitable – hence the name. We can look at making the best out of the situation instead of giving in. 

We are working closely with such active and open minded entrepreneurs working on the situations. 

Via Negativa.