Thank you 2020. Hello 2021.

More than anything else, I once again learned to unlearn a lot of things in the year that passed by that was 2020. I learned, yet again, that Change is the only constant and over time, we realise that “Change” in any form is good. Honestly, when I look back 365 days behind as the train was chugging in to the Mysore Railway Junction on the morning of 3^rd Jan. 2020 around 7.30am, little did I realise that I would come this far. I was on my way to take up the new assignment at Kushal Nagar as Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Levista Coffee, where the parent company SLN Coffee Pvt. Ltd. is head quartered. As always when I take up a new assignment, I went with an open mind, so I can learn as much as I could and decided to take up the new role, one day at a time. Within a few days, I had settled down in the Company’s Guest House in Bangalore and spent a good amount of time trying to understand the various aspects of our business, Industry, colleagues, external & internal stakeholders. 

I would avidly look forward to returning to Chennai where my family lived. And it was quiet emotional for me to leave on a Sunday night often even as the kids would get in to all gloom for not being able to see me in person for 2 weeks or so. Until one day, everything turned topsy-turvy and life took a 180-degree turn. U Turn, if I could say so. From mutually missing each other, at one stage it felt like an over-dose (not really!) that we spent 150 days precisely under one roof, thanks to continued lockdowns. In the first 2 weeks of the first Lockdown, life came to a standstill, literally and figuratively. None of us had much to do other than watch News channels in multiple languages to get different perspectives. By mid-April, there was some action slowly on the work front but still we were all locked up at home with limited chances of stepping out, even to shop necessities. 

A chance visit to a local retail store and my Father seemed to have picked up the dreaded Coronavirus which eventually moved on to my Mother. Little did he realise and when he visited our home one fine morning to deliver vegetables, we panicked and rushed my parents for tests which proved positive. Meanwhile, my daughter picked the infection from him, her sister from her and my wife from them. I tested “Negative” being O+ve (or for some strange reason) and was blessed to take care of the family for the next four weeks until things settled down albeit very slowly. However, it was in May ’20 that Levista achieved a historic highest monthly sale followed by another historic Sales milestone in June. And I was here, in my bed as I write this article, seven months ago when all members of the family were fighting an unknown infection. 

The fact that we as humans were so vulnerable and life is too short was a shot in the arm for me from those days and I vowed to be ever so grateful and thankful to the Creator and Mother Nature for bestowing whatever we have today. From sighing that I had lost crores of rupees on my StartUps over 5 years since 2014, to being happy that my Parents came back home in flesh and blood from the hospital after treatment and that my wife recovered though slower than anticipated was the last nail in my box of worries. From that day onwards, I have been the happiest if all members of my family woke up the next morning and lived a basic, normal life. 

My second XUV500 AT was 2 years old when I joined Levista. This was my sixth vehicle in 15 years after self-driving over 2,75,000 kms all by myself across India on work & leisure, I was contemplating an upgrade to a more posh German beast in the coming months. That’s when I had to call a mechanic to jump start the engine of my beloved XUV whose battery went dead due to no usage for weeks together! How things change… From planning to buy a new car, I decided to sell the XUV so I can save on the EMI since I had almost NIL travel during those 6 months. I ventured out from home on the 151^st Day on 10 Aug. 2020 to Bangalore well equipped with E-Pass for an Up and down Travel and have driven 13,600 kms till date on my beast ever since. The entire discussions of Levista’s partnership on Bigg Boss Tamil Season 4 feat. Padmashree Kamal Hassan was decided and finalised during one of those long drives between Bangalore & Chennai. Every 40-50 mins, I would stop at a Toll Booth and make calls, internal and external to seek views. What a drive this has been – I mean the ones to Bangalore / Chennai as well as life overall. And many such discussions while the Office driver was behind the wheel including Zoom Calls with my iPad perched behind the seat. 

In the middle of Nov. ’20, our team completed the total Turnover of FY 19-20 and that was a moment to celebrate with fellow soldiers even as they ventured out carefully everyday those 8 months fighting an unknown enemy that Covid-19 is. A big round of applause and hearty thanks to their family members for allowing their beloved to go out and conquer the world. As is the case of MS Dhoni, I realised that all the noise in the stadium (read: my surroundings who kept cheering and booing me!) was insignificant as long as I don’t take it too much to my heart. As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, don’t get very upset when something unfortunate happens and don’t get too ecstatic when something very cheerful happens. Easy to say for you, Dear Lord as you are the Creator and we are mere mortals. 

Listening 15 mins daily about the epic Mahabharatha narrated by a noted and eminent scholar Velukkudi Shri. Krishnan helped me immensely for the past 225 days. In his daily bulletin, he would move the story as written by Guru Shri Veda Vyasa and narrated by Sage Vaishampayana to King Janamejaya. It was so timely that there would be gems every few days which had a direct impact on my daily life, personal and professional, that it was surreal to hear those advices.

Even as I ended the Calendar Year professionally with a first ever Virtual Media Launch on 28^th Dec. ’20, with our new flavours of coffee and the much awaited mass market variant - Levista Supreme Instant coffee, it seemed to be a memorable, meaningful and a successful year that I completed, much to the chagrin of my detractors, happiness and joy of my well-wishers and with the constant love and encouragement of my immediate family and a few close friends. Without the unstinted support of my Management and my colleagues at work, this journey wouldn’t have been this smooth – even if I wish to call it so. It certainly has been the fastest, toughest and perhaps the most fulfilling professional journey I have had in the past 24 years in Consumer Retail. 

I started the year (lockdown) with virtual classes for MBA students whom I was teaching offline until Mar. ’20. Over time, this virtual address became a way of life with me having spoken at over a dozen Webinars as well as my 4^th consecutive year at BIL Trichy teaching the Retailing Elective for the second year students. While I didn’t miss my walk through during the lectures – my laptop screen would be off and I'd keep walking in my room as I gave the lectures using my bluetooth earphones, I really missed my campus stay at the guest houses, the morning walks within the sprawling BHEL dwelling in Trichy, the food feasts and of course the much awaited train travel. And yesterday, I addressed over 100+ MBA students of XLRI Jamshedpur, a session which I must have presented at the campus in the third week of Mar. ’20 to the previous batch.

Of all things, I learned to appreciate life as it is; from what we have to seeing what others didn’t have and to compare ourselves to be blessed than them. We cannot change the system, the nature and destiny. But we, as humans are blessed with the knack of converting adversities in to opportunities. That’s a choice we all wake up with. For Ex., I sensed an opportunity that the Out of Home Coffee Consumption and Workplace Coffee consumption could be coupled with incremental household consumption, add to it the WFH woes and the initial days of adjusting to the new normal. After 8-9 months, it sounds boring to hear or to utter the phrase “The New Normal”. It is, rather “normal” and it shall be so all along now. 

While I didn’t have time, rather didn’t make time to learn a professional course or start gaming on one of my i-devices, "i-learnt-cooking" was perhaps the proudest moment for my me and more for my Mom rather, who still is unable to come to terms that I could take so much interest in this “art” which she has been an expert at that I have shown no interest for the past 30 years! Other than exploring life from different perspectives, it’s been a yet another adventurous year for me. So, thank you 2020. I am clear about my destination by 2030. But until then, I shall enjoy the journey every day. As I always say, the Journey is as important as the Destination. #Miles2Go 

WFH – Boon to Retailers & Brands

Many companies have advised their employees to plan WFH until end of this Calendar year. This means a good / happy news as well as a significant job loss for millions. That more people will lose lives and livelihood for the grave mistakes of themselves and the Governments across the world is a reality that we are staring at. However, the eternal optimist that I am, I can already see green shoots in certain segments of the consumer business. Some of you may recall that during my Webinar sessions in the months of April & May, I had referred to certain categories which is only bound to increase if not at least sustain its current business opportunity. Most of the daily household items have seen consistent growth even during the extended lockdown while Food related FMCG have shown tremendous growth. Categories such as Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Flours & Pulses have seen a spurt in sales for many brands while Retailers, albeit with a shortened operating time than before, are not complaining, thanks to consistent footfalls and increased bill values. 

However, what has taken many Retailers, Distributors and the entire supply chain by surprise is the huge surge in work-furniture for home and Electronics + Consumer Durables. We ourselves went shopping last week only to find that Godrej Interiors had completely run out of stock for 4 weeks, Home Town had absolutely no sight of when stocks would be replenished, over 40 customers merely waiting to enter Home Stop and hitherto B2B players such as Featherlite living up to the unprecedented opportunity and serving customers with their backend capabilities being spruced up. Traditional Furniture Retailers are not lagging behind either. Actually, I see many of the neighborhood shops doing brisk business with the highest demand for compact desktop / laptop chairs under Rs. 4,000 a piece followed by chairs that suit or double up for other purposes. I have also been hearing a few of my Architect-friends getting calls from their Business Clients to set-up / renovate their homes to be able to work. 

The other category which has been doing extremely brisk business is Cosnumer Durables, Home appliances and personal electronics. While Amazon & Flipkart haven’t resumed their deliveries fully across geographies, consumers are literally seen shuttling from one shop to another for want of peripherals such as computer mouse, headphones, Mobile Phones with 4GB RAM (to be able to take up Apps such as Skype & Zoom) under sub-Rs. 10,000 and most importantly, Laptops. I guess desktops as a category is passé – one, it occupies too much space and it’s immobile within the house as well as across users, which gives a push for laptops. 

In my own personal case, I had to wait for over 6 weeks to get myself a new MacBook Air, an upgrade after using the previous Air for 5 years. Thanks to good friends, I was able to lay my hands on one out of the two pieces that landed in Chennai after the recent lockdown. The folks at Apple India as well as Apple Retailers say with a grin that most models of MacBook / iPad are out of stock and there is no immediate visibility of their arrival into the stores.

With the State Governments finally budging for schools to conduct Online classes – the High Court of Tamil Nadu has especially allowed private Schools to collect 40% of the Annual Tuition Fee for the present academic year – Online Classes are getting more and more real. The state run “Kalvi Tv” in TN shall also showcase online lessons while every other State Government is looking at similar measures to ensure continuity of education. This further means more requirement of laptops, earphones and so on. That there is no shortage of Electricity at urban and semi-urban homes is a big advantage.

Smart Entrepreneurs, Individuals and Businesses have lapped up this opportunity. A second-degree associate of mine who was retrenched by his employer, a Hardware Engineer with 10+ years of experience has taken up direct sale of Laptops to Corporates making a neat 4-5% commission on the purchase value. He claims his income, although a temporary one is lesser than what he used to make in his previous job while he reconciles that he is unsure how long this would go on – his parallel entrepreneurship and the Corona lockdown. Whichever way, make hay while the sun shines is the way forward I guess. 

Meanwhile, traditional retailers in both these categories are indeed an aggrieved lot. For Example, the Founder of a family business which is in to Electronics for the past 2 decades has been adamant on downsizing his margins for want of volumes. He claims that this one-off discounting model on gadgets such as Iron boxes, Personal Shaving Equipment (for men) and other household items such as mixer grinders and refrigerators will hurt the business once the challenges are over, especially around Deepavali 2020. What he doesn’t realize is whether he would be operational until then, running 20+ stores across the state, employing over 300 people and a joint family of 4 siblings and their wards. 

In another instance, a proprietary furniture dealer near my home refused to entertain any sort of reduction on Chairs claiming that these items were already on high demand and that he sees no reasons why they should be sold at lower prices. That there are literally 100s of furniture shops around is something the gentleman should realize soon. Maybe, he wouldn’t. 

I am actually planning to write a book which would go by the name “Corona Millionaires” which could be release in 24 months or so. No, I am not referring to the likes of billionaire Shri. Mukesh Ambani and his ilk. I am referring to common people like you and me – who found this crisis as the biggest business opportunity of their lives. May be a Netflix original too. It could rake in more money than what many Entrepreneurs would make during this crisis.