 Hello and welcome to another episode of our special series, Beating All Odds. COVID-19 has locked all of us down in our houses. Offices are shut, factories are closed, production houses are locked. In these times of crisis, there are leaders who are still telling us how to run our businesses, while working from home. They're trying to contain the damage this deadly disease can cause to our economy. With me today is such senior leader, Mr. Ashish Prasin, CEO APAC, Chairman India Densu Ages Network. Welcome to the show, sir. Happy to be here, Nazia. Sir, to begin with, I want to understand from you in these times of crisis, how should we ensure that our businesses, our agencies, our brands, how do they stay relevant and healthy and active? Look, I think you have to look at things stepwise. First of all, you have to look at the safety of all your staff, all your people, everybody that you deal with. Nothing is more important than human life and their health. After that, you've got to put in place plans so that business continuity happens to the extent that it is possible. We had a business continuity plan which was well rehearsed. We had also learned from the fact that our China office went into lockdown kind of a scenario much earlier. And the unsung heroes at times like these are actually the IT guys because you never have enough VPN licenses, you never have enough bandwidth, you never have enough this, that and the other. And they're making sure that we're able to operate in a secure environment as much as is possible in this. So those are the physical preparations that you have to do. Equally, I believe in times like these, the best thing is to communicate more than to communicate less, particularly as leaders because there's anxiety with everybody. There's also a great need to be transparent. When you're in a crisis, there is no sense in looking at it from as a too rosy a picture as too optimistically, but at the same time, there is no need to be excessively pessimistic either. But you have to accept reality and share that with your team so that everybody knows what is there to come and so that you can prepare for it. For example, we know that the next few quarters at least are going to be terrible for advertising and particularly for some parts of advertising. And it's going to be a long time before things start coming back to normal. So first, accept the facts. Then also accept the fact that there is going to be light at the end of this tunnel. It's not, you haven't hit a dead end. The world hasn't come to an end. This is a phase it too shall pass. And then you've got to make sure that you're gearing yourself up. These are times where you have to cut the fact. Everybody is under pressure at this moment, but you mustn't cut the muscle because when the bounce back happens, when things come back to normal and they will, things will come back to normal. When that happens, you have to be, you have to ensure that your company is in good shape to take advantage of it as well. So it's a very fine balance. And I would think it is the duty of leaders to be positive and to communicate a lot with their teams and the teams in turns to communicate a lot with their teams and so on and so forth. And my mantra really is that while we're practicing social distancing, we actually have to practice more of virtual proximity in times like these. Sir, you are, you had the entire APAC region. So you're managing many markets affected by this particular crisis. Where do you see India in terms of, when you compare, how long will it take India to recover or are we recovering, will we recover faster or something that we can learn from other markets? So look, we've been experiencing this now from let's say around the middle of Jan or so. Our China offices were the first offices that started going into lockdown before the Chinese New Year. So Shanghai Beijing, Wuhan, we have an office in Wuhan about 275, 300 people there. So those started going into, so we've been actually living with this now in APAC for more than two months, I would say. So it's not new in that sense. Ironically, today as we speak, the only offices that are somewhat functioning or nearly properly functioning are in Beijing and Shanghai. Wuhan isn't yet open, it's still work from home, but it's quite likely that in a week or so, even that will open up, right? So that's taken about two, two and a half months for it to come into that. Different countries will react differently. Some like Singapore have tried to keep basic stuff going, but went into distancing and went into some of these measures in a very controlled way pretty early in the game. Some like Taiwan actually have managed very well in spite of the fact that there was a lot of cases initially, they pegged their reported cases in a few hundreds, which was remarkable the way it had started over there. Korea is a great example where it just went out of control for a while and then they came back in such a nice way that it started leveling out. So on the other hand, you're seeing some very alarming increases in Southeast Asia, parts of Southeast Asia like Malaysia and so on. So it's different in different markets. In some markets like Myanmar, I'm not even sure whether they're doing enough testing so that the information is right. I think in India, the next week or so is going to be very crucial because everybody is now doing PhD in WhatsAppology these days and everybody's an expert on flattening the curve and what is the Italy trajectory and what's the Spain trajectory and so on. So from whatever information I can gather from the experts and I'm not relying on the WhatsApp experts, I think it will largely depend over the next seven to 10 days as to how much of containment we've been able to do and that will determine how badly India will be affected. Have you already started making recovery plans for your plans? It depends on which market in China, yes. In Taiwan, yes. In Hong Kong and Singapore, maybe a little bit. But in markets like India just now, we're well behind on that because we're not even fully into, we're still in the lockdown. So I think recovery plans is slightly far away at the moment. I think the most important thing that you have to remember, one thing which I keep sharing with my colleagues is that there is a finite period after which the infection hopefully will come under control. I don't know whether that's going to be one month, two months, three months, but they say that with the heat, et cetera, et cetera. And if the government has done the lockdown, hopefully it will come into control and let's hope that happens fast. But the mistaken impression that people have particularly for a market like India which is so complex, it's not as if when that happens that suddenly there'll be a switch which will be switched on and things will come back to normal. Because remember factories are shut, labor has gone back home. The liquidity which keeps the economy greased and working is dried up completely. So even when the medical part of the emergency start getting more under control or get over, the economy is going to take much longer to come back to that. So I think the recovery plans, et cetera, are a distance away yet for India. We don't know how bad the medical emergency part will be. I do hope the lockdown is not extended too much beyond this. It was very necessary to do so to flatten the curve and to keep the social distancing happening. But beyond the point if that's extended, I think the impact on the economy will be very long lasting and that's the fear. And I don't see recovery happening. If we have a good monsoon, because we always underestimate the impact of monsoon in our country, if we have a good monsoon, then I think we can start looking at a recovery around Diwali time. Coming back to these days, we are all at home. Our television consumption has gone up. Our digital consumption has gone up. Still advertisers are shying away from advertising because of course most of the outlets are shut. They don't have much to sell. But do you think it is also in certain ways right time for certain brands to engage with people? It depends on whether you have a need to advertise. If your production is shut, if your outlet is shut, if there is no other than essential goods, that's true for almost every industry on that. What are you going to advertise for? And the other big concern which everybody is running a business and the biggest problem just now is going to be liquidity. Everybody is going to conserve cash. Will you pay your wages first or will you want to pay for advertising first? Unfortunately, advertising is one of the easiest expenses to cut down. It is right that from an efficiency perspective, it is probably a great time to be buying media because television viewership has gone up, digital consumption has gone up, gaming is a great opportunity. Gaming is just going through the roof and we saw this throughout Asia Pacific. In fact, at times like these, all of that happens. But who has the need to advertise is critical. Some of the FMCT brands, cleaning products, etc., great opportunity for them because their products may still be selling. But even they will at some stage want to conserve cash because it's still not life as normal for anybody. So the one thing that you must remember is that this is very unique. So in my 32 years of working life, I've gone through four slowdowns, recessions, whatever you call it. In 2008, when we had the recession, most countries were hit. Some more, some less. India was relatively sheltered because we weren't that globally aligned, etc., etc. But this is different. This is a medical emergency. The whole world is impacted and the impact is as severe as a total lockdown on that. So this is unprecedented. It's kind of stuff your parents or grandparents told you about the war days or the partition days where you were looking for food and survival was an issue and so on and so forth. So this is unprecedented. I don't think any managers in this generation or maybe even one or two generations before have had the experience to rely upon, to fall back upon to see how this will be tackled. And therefore anyone who's trying to take this as business as usual is making a big mistake. What are some unthinkable takeaways that you're going to take? I mean, you will have from this experience. How do you mean unthinkable? I mean, you have a long career of 33 decades or whatever. The things that you have only learned during this phase. I mean, your business. You can be locked down in your house and you can still do work. I've never worked from home ever in my life, not a single day. I hardly ever take leave unless I've gone on a holiday out or whatever. But the fact that if you're forced to, you can work from home is in itself a big learning for me. I think on the positive side, you get to spend a fair amount of time with your family. Of course, I'd like to see statistics afterwards whether divorce rates go up after the lockdown is lifted or not. But it's nice to be with the family and to be spending time. I think, and it gives you, does give you some time to catch up on your reading and for reflection and so on. But strangely, I find myself working longer hours now than even in the normal because, you know, because I handle APAC, the time zones are very different. And I think one big challenge, as leaders, it is our job to be positive. You cannot let your team lose hope because these are very, very difficult times. And I keep telling them that, yes, it is very difficult and you must be transparent that it is very difficult, but there is hope at the end of this tunnel. And so one of the pressures you have to put on yourself is that you have to remain positive because only if you're positive, positivity is infectious in a positive sense. So your enthusiasm cannot win. And I think that's one of the learnings from something like this. And of course, the need to over communicate because these are times of anxiety. Everybody is worried. People are worried, will I have a job? What's going to happen? Will my client pay up? Will businesses fold? And these are all genuine concerns. Will my family be safe? What's going to happen? So all of us have anxieties, all of us at this time. I think the more we talk to each other and the more support we provide each other, the better it is at times like these. So I think these are some of the key learnings. So before we close, I would want you to say something. I mean, your piece of advice for youngsters who are in your domain and they're sitting at home and struggling with work or anxiety. I mean, what exactly should they do right now? Look, I think the first thing is that accept the reality. There is, if anybody is telling you it's going to be business as usual, life will be back to normal. Everything will be hunky dory in 15 days or one month. Forget it. Either they don't know or they're lying. So accept the reality that this is a difficult time and this difficulty is going to leave an impact for some period of time. But at the same time, there is absolutely no need to be despondent. For the middle term and the long term, India is in the best position possible. Our economy will do well. Advertising is very responsive to economy. And just like how when it's going down, advertising is going down much faster, when it goes up, advertising will go up much faster. Use this time to upgrade yourselves. There are many things that you want to do, but don't get... Look at the amount of courses that are available online today. And not just digital courses and Coursera related courses, but so many hobbies or anything that you do want to do. Use this time to upgrade yourself. It's a reset opportunity. But be positive, because there will be light at the end of this tunnel. And advertising and marketing will come out stronger from this than ever before. But be prepared that you are in for a long haul and the winter is coming. So therefore you've got to be prepared for it. So the more you prepare yourself and the more positive you stay, the stronger you're going to come out of it. Thank you, Ashish sir. Thank you so much for talking to us. It was really inspiring. Stay at home and stay safe. Thank you and you too, Nazia. Thanks, bye.