 These are unprecedented times. These are extremely tough times, difficult times. We had a morning address from our honorable prime minister, and he's requested us to or advised us to stay back for another two weeks. And in these times, businesses are experiencing a great amount of trouble. And at Entrepreneurial Board, we've taken this and seek advice from stalwarts like Mr. Snalda Paral and a great panelist who are joining us in the next panel. So how are we going to conduct this? I'm going to spend the next five to seven minutes as to introduce you to what we are and what we are trying to do in these times. And then I'm going to request our distinguished guests to share his wisdom with us. So at Entrepreneurial, which is a franchise India group company, I myself lead franchise India's media and exhibition business. At our group company, we are a community of small businesses, SMEs, entrepreneurs, enterprises, and a very large number of small businesses, SOHO businesses, entrepreneurs, a great influencer of influencers, a lot of freelancers. And we experience that they are the most wonderful lot. They are very badly affected at these times. And they need to survive in these times. And in these times, if they don't seek business out there, if they don't market themselves, it's to a die for them. And at these times, when you go out and seek business, most often than not, you are looked down, and you said there's such a big social issue that you are encountering, and you're going and seeking business at these times. But let me tell you and share this thought with you, which we firmly believe in these times, is businesses need to survive these situations and in a country like India. Seeking help from government is going to be a far-sighted dream, to be very honest. We had some senior representatives from government, and they have a very big issue to address. And they need to address a very different segment of society. So as businesses, what we advise is that businesses help businesses. So businesses in these times can come forward and help each other is what we believe in. At Entrepreneur and Franchise India, we've taken some necessary steps around it. And particularly with Entrepreneur, we have what we've developed an ECG strategy, which is called Engage, Communicate, and Guide. This is the time when marketing needs to capture these three key areas. First, we go and engage. This is very important. We cannot be as enablers, as business people, be in silos, and not helping our consumers and customers. So we need to actively engage them. We need to overcommunicate at this time. So I personally feel that these are times when you have to extend an extra hand, you have to go out and overcommunicate in these times. And most importantly, what do you communicate? You communicate ideas, you communicate, you guide them. And I mean, I'm personally, we've done close to about 150 webinars in the last 20 days. We never did a webinar ever. But these 150 webinars done by teams across the verticals is something which has engaged lots of people in these webinars. And purely what we are trying to do is we are trying to sort of create ideas. We are creating opportunities for people to pivot, to survive, to thrive in whatever situation that you are in. So I repeat, we've got ECG strategy, which is called Engage, Communicate, and Guide our customers. We've kind of broad based our customers into four kind of categories. We call on the cream side, we look at deeply impacted categories. For example, my business, which I do a large business on events and exhibitions, which is deeply impacted. And we are sitting at virtually 95% of our revenue score. We don't see near future us opening our shows very in an immediate future. So these are deeply impacted businesses, restaurants, hospitality. These are deeply impacted businesses, travel. Second thing, which is deeply impacted. So there's one bucket, which is deeply impacted businesses. What can you do for them? What can you work around them? Second business that we look at is moderately impacted businesses, which we are in the revenues are down by 50%. These are businesses, which are retail businesses. My e-commerce is still doing, but I've lost on a lot of opportunities. Retail could be even more impacted, but certain businesses, which still continue to operate in a certain impact. There are businesses, which are a little impacted business. About 25% of the business is down. So I'm still an education business. I've got some impact, but I've not impacted big time. But there are businesses, which are thriving at these times. They are tech businesses. I was a pure player tech business thriving right now. So businesses like them need to be. So these are four buckets. We've got deeply impacted. We've got moderately impacted. We've got little impact. And we've got thriving business. How are you approaching them? Obviously, you're going to the most of the folks are marketing to thriving businesses. But really, the opportunity, in my view, is equal with deeply impacted businesses. The opportunity is equally with moderately impacted businesses. How can you go and guide them, help them, and build a great amount of opportunity with them for near future? And these are also times, particularly in B2B marketing, which is very consultative in nature, to build a great amount of thought leadership and brand equity around those businesses. And in some sense, if you really ask me, these are the times which will differentiate between good and greats. So these are times which would have a very lasting effect on you and your businesses. Probably, if you can extend those hands, if you guide your businesses in the right manner. I don't know how many of you've read this nice piece on CNPC, which I came across that Ali Baba was built in 2002 crisis, and it became a $500 billion opportunity. Why? Because somebody addressed that problem. Somebody did the right thing. As we represent a very large SMB community, and one piece of advice that I can give to them is these are times to look at new segments. There was never a better opportunity to look at a better segment. New segments pivot your businesses to a certain extent. For example, one of our businesses that we do is essentially it's called businessx.com. And we were largely concentrating on small businesses and startups. But one of the categories that's recently emerged for us and it's become very exciting for us is mentors. Their whole time is available with people and they want to jump on to consulting or coaching opportunity. And that business kind of be pivoted that business 20 years, 20 days back. And we started doing webinars for mentors. And we built a very large community around there. So how do you pivot? How do you look at newer opportunities? This is great. I'm very impressed with one of the communication that I came across from Facebook where they wanted to address a community of journalists. They've got a very large community of journalists and they wanted to extend a helping hand there. And they reached out to that community. So how do you bucket those communities also who could potentially benefit at this time with your guidance, with your help, with your support? And it necessarily doesn't need to be a monetary support. It could be a guidance. It could be a direction. It could be an extended help that you can do. And these are times which would work very well. And how do you use technology at these times to sort of help people be engagements would be very exciting. We've reached to tier 3, tier 4, thanks to Zoom and a bunch of other webinar platforms. We are reaching very effectively to a very large community out there in tier 2, 3, tier 2, 4 times, 4 towns. Being a very large event company, we do about 600 events annually in about 78 cities. For us, it was impossible to imagine ourselves reaching out to our community. But I think, and I must confess, we were not a very ahead of the curve kind of technology company. But we've tried to pivot and use technology to a certain extent. It's working very well for us in terms of at least not generating business, but at least engaging communities, communicating with them, and helping, trying to sort of guide them through this phase. Last piece of advice to SMBs, again, and businesses at large, is about runways. We are all talking about runways at these times when you look at cash flows and stuff like that. So you have to plan your marketing strategies linked with your runways, whether your runways three months, six months, 18 months, 24 months, whatever you plan. And plan your marketing strategies with a short-term, mid-term, long-term strategies. And align them with your business strategies and see how you can maximize them in these times is my last piece of advice. So this is a bit about what we are doing at Franchise India and Entrepreneurial India. Once again, thank you all for joining. And now I would like to introduce my our special guest this morning, Mrs. Nal Dabral. Honestly, Mrs. Nal doesn't need any introduction. I mean, he's a stalwart. He's one of the iconic professionals in the industry with three decades of body work that he's done, which has impressed us. We are all, it's kind of a fan movement for me because, you know, we've seen his great work and we've grown up with the great brands that he's built, early days with Okilvy, Lintas. He's headed Bates in India. He's headed Okilvy in Malaysia. He's done, he's in three key markets in Asia, Malaysia, Singapore and India. He's done some phenomenal work. His last assignment was as a vice-chair and chief creative officer for Okilvy in India and Southeast Asia. And on 31st of March, he's formally announced his entrepreneurial journey and he's now open to business with his own agency, which he'll shortly disclose the brand and business. But the agency is gonna be helping a lot of businesses out there with their creative needs. It's phones, web, a lot of advertising opportunities. So without further delay, I welcome and I request Mrs. Naldabra to take over. Thank you, thank you Sachin. Thanks a lot. That was a very generous introduction. Thanks a lot. And especially these days, you know, when one doesn't know whether one is coming or going, let me just take this poll out of my side here. So, hi everybody. It's very odd that I can see myself, but I can't see any of you. But I guess that's what webinars are all about. And, you know, I've done zillions of Zoom meetings, but this is the first time that I'm doing a webinar. And I think I'll enjoy it, I'm sure. Although I'll be the one who will be speaking and sharing things with you. But I'm trying to imagine that I'm looking at all of you, right, and I can see all of you sitting at your own homes, healthy, safe, smiling, enjoying, making the best of the situation that we are in. So, you know, I decide advertising. One of the things that I keep talking about also is that I've got other interests besides advertising. One of them is obviously visual storytelling, filmmaking. So, that's what I'll be now getting into, writing and directing. So, it could be a feature film, it could be web series, it could be ad films. So, that's what I'm working on now. But besides that, I'm also, there are a few passions of mine, and two of them are actually playing Blackjack and Single Maltes. These have been two big passions of mine. And these passions of mine have kind of, taught me a few things. I've kind of, it's very odd to say, but, you know, but as they say, you can learn anything from anywhere. So, I've learned stuff, I've learned certain lessons from the Single Maltes that I enjoy. I've learned lessons from Blackjack, whether I win, whether I lose, but the way one plays Blackjack, I've learned lessons from that. And I was kind of, you know, when Sachin and Raul asked me to invite me to do this webinar and thank you for that, I was trying to think, what should I speak on? And then I realized that, you know, currently the situation that we are in, we've got, obviously we are all doing a lot of work, but besides that, this thing has given us time to even indulge in some of our passions, whether it's cooking, whether it's fitness, whether it's, and I realized that each of these passions actually can play a role or give us certain lessons in terms of how we come out of this mess, you know? How we come out stronger, how we come out better, you know? So, I thought a few of those lessons because the time is less, I'll kind of share with you. And with each of those lessons, I've kind of brought together a piece of work that I did. So, hopefully sharing it on Zoom today, the sound and the, hopefully there's not much lag and you are able to enjoy some of the films you might have seen, some of the films you might not have seen because a couple of pieces are work that I did when I was in Malaysia and Singapore. But before I start, why today's historic day, let me start my presentation with that. I'm sharing the screen now, I'm sharing my keynote deck, give me a minute. Yep, it's here. So, today, can you all hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah. So, today, in 1970, which is my God, which is like 50 years back, today is the 50th anniversary of a blast that happened in space 200,000 miles out of work at 200,000 miles distance from Earth. And in that work, is Frigate and Jim Logel and they were on board Apollo 13. And what happened was that there was a command module which was called Odyssey. And there was the lunar module which was Aquarius. And in command module, they had a big blast. And suddenly, all the power in the command module, and this is the blast that happened. The power in the command module went off. Their lunar landing plans were obviously aborted. And then this resulted in the space star's main power source being cut. There was a loss of heat, loss of oxygen, loss of drinkable water. And what it did was it put the lives of these three man crew, which I said was Frigate, Fred Hayes, and Commander Lowell, into huge danger. Now, with the lunar plans are obviously aborted. The crew then worked with NASA mission control in Houston. And that's when he said these same words, which was Houston, we've had a problem. Those lines were kind of changed and given to Tom Hanks, but they were actually spoken by Frigate. But they were kind of quoted to Jim Lowell, who Tom Hanks played in the film. And they were changed to Houston, we have a problem. Instead of Houston, we've had a problem. Anyway, the lunar module, which was designed to carry just three people, just two people for only 45 hours onto the moon, had to be then used for all the three to survive. Not just for 45 hours, for the whole of 90 hours journey back. So these three people took refuge, the three astronauts, took refuge into the lunar module, which still had the oxygen supply, which still had the power working. But they had to save all that. So they switched off all the lights and they were in the cold, which kind of went down as much as three degrees centigrade on their way back to Earth. And NASA mission control, at one point in time, the astronauts looked at the line of the Earth, where the Earth was the horizon, to kind of tell mission control what their exact location was. So amidst this huge, if you call it adversity, that was the adversity of the worst kind. I mean, not that what we are living through is not bad, but imagine these three people out there in space. And what came out was a huge amount of creativity. It came creativity, resilience, all the training that they're trained for all these years. Everything kind of came together in those 90 hours. In those 90 hours, when they kind of returned to Earth and finally flashed safely into the ocean. So these were the three people. So what does it tell us? It tells us that there is actually, adversity actually is the mother of creativity. So that's one way to look at it. So I thought that's what I'll talk about today with some examples, of course. And here comes my first lesson from, I'm sure you must have heard it in different phrases, but when you sit down to play blackjack, it's not about the card that your cards that you're dealt, but how you play that hand. Adversity will come in, problems will come, that's part of life, that's the reality of life. But that's how you respond to those problems. It's how you respond to that adversity. That makes all the difference. In that adversity, are you making the best use of the time that has been given to you? Are you making the best use of your resources, your training, your patience, your resilience? So as I said, it's not about the card you're dealt, but how you play the hand that matters. The truth about adversity is that it's very important to acknowledge that we have the freedom to choose, how we respond, how we respond to people, how we respond to events, how we respond to circumstances. We can all respond in a very negative way, we can very respond in a very limiting way, or we can choose to respond with more optimism, with more making better use of the time that has been given to us. Anyway, let's go to the next one. So this is the first film that I wanted to show you, share with you. This was for Coca-Cola and we did this film in Singapore. Now why I'm showing you this film is that this film was a story. The film, the whole idea was the platform idea that we were working on was Coke side of life. It was about positivity, it was about optimism. That was the Coke kind of baseline and platform idea. So we wrote a story about this high-challenged person, an interesting story about this high-challenged person. And so the client had bought few other films, but this film was kind of in the backboard. So we are having some technical glitch, it seems. So we're trying to get Mrs. Nal back on the screen. As we wait for Mrs. Nal to join back, let me see the show of hands. How many of you are from the advertising paternity, ad agencies, brand consultants? Great, we've got Mrs. Nal back, but to show a raise of hands for agencies. Aisa, you're welcome back. Yeah, great. So I'm really sorry about this, but the internet is really giving a problem these days. So anyway, so we gathered in this, so it was, as I told you, story of a high-challenged person. And so we gathered at this lounge before the shoot was the next morning, and in the evening we were all sitting in this lounge bar in Amsterdam. And at the hotel we were staying and we were having a meeting in terms of how the shoot will go the next day, and we were discussing the whole film. And the director said that Kiran Desai, the actor who we have casted as a high-challenged person will be coming soon. So he said, okay, and suddenly everybody in the bar, there was a bit of a sudden, sudden silence, and everybody turns to look in the direction of the entrance. And in walks Kiran Desai. Now Kiran Desai was like this high, you know, because he's a high-challenged person. And he walks into the thing with the jacket kind of hanging, and you know, he's wearing a nice kind of jacket and jeans, and he was wearing these boots, and he comes in and he sits with us, and he starts to chat. And within five minutes he kind of, he was owning the meeting. He was talking, he was laughing, he was recounting stories, recounting stories of various shoots. He was the Oompa Loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So he does, as an actor, he had been playing the stunt double for a lot of child actors, and you know, whenever you needed a high-challenged person. And he was telling these fantastic stories about all these places, and in that moment I looked at him and I realized that there was nothing in the way he was behaving, which told you that he's got such a challenge that he lives with. There was not a trace of that, and that was so inspiring to look at. I mean, you'll see the film now that they're written, but the film was almost playing in my head, right sitting there. I was seeing a kind of real life example. So this is, I mean, this is just an inspiration that I thought I'd share with you. So this is the first film and my experience that I want to talk to you about. Okay, the second one, you know, IPL is not happening right now this year, so hopefully it'll be there next year. Now this was, I worked on it when I was in Bate, and why I brought this here is that because obviously there was no adversity as such, but Virgin Mobile was a very small client in terms of the budget. So I can drop the... In IP, hello. So I can drop, sir, if you could plug in that sound once again. Before you share, I think, before you share. Yeah, I'm getting there. On screen, you'll have to stop sharing and then re-share. I'm just trying to get that. Yeah, got it. Share, got it. Yeah, got it. Great. This film you saw properly or was it without sound? Let's do it again. Yeah, great. As I said, the budgets are low, and while all the other mobile telecom players had huge budgets and they would be present on TV, we didn't know what to do. And so as I said, the necessity at that time was the mother of invention. So we decided that instead of TV, it was the first time that IPL was being live webcasted. So we decided that we'll be present. Let's do a campaign that will be only there on the web. And instead of doing, so we decided instead of doing a normal ad campaign, let's create an Indian Bangladesh, which would be these six friends who belong to six different teams, and they kind of rile each other because they are in all opposing camps. And that kind of gave birth to this idea. And then we wrote made 104 films that ran. So as I said, necessity being the mother of invention. So in the limited resources that we have, which is going to happen as we come out of this, in those limited resources, how can we think creatively is the lesson that I got out of this? Take a look. What I'm going to show you is the case peri film, which I'll have later. We'll give you the background of the campaign. That's Rikal. Do you know what's the biggest thing in India? It's not cricket. It's the Indian Premier League, the 2020 format of cricket. Hanji, action, drama, excitement, horror, and cheerleaders, all just in 20 hours. And it's been watched by a billion people. It is not a joke, a billion people. So for 45 days, eight state teams fight with each other. Of course, mine is Punjab, but sadly, the last shit happens. But that's not the point. The point is, during this time, every brand spends millions and millions on TV. So when Virgin Mobile wanted to advertise the lowest interest rate call rates during IPL, they look beyond TV. I tell you how it went online where the target audience was already watching the live streams of the matches. So for these cricket crazy fans, Virgin Mobile created an alternate league, the Indian Pangali, which captures the spirit of sledging that happens between the fans. The Indian Pangali was a series of 105 online films, featuring verbal battles between eight passionate fans from eight different states. Over interstate calls. No delivery. The person they're trying to call is currently unavailable. Please try again later. But do you know our team had just changed their colors? Oh, when it's your batsman, your bowler, your coach, your gynecologist, your psychiatrist, and change his bloody muckut, you're wearing a gold muckut, it feels like we're walking. Hey, we're the king of the king. The people of Kolkata fight like a real tiger. Tiger? Machan, be careful. There are very few left, huh? All the films were available on IndianPangali.in, YouTube channel, Twitter, and Facebook. But it was the millions of cricket fans who spread the word for us. Can you believe it? In just one month, Indian Pangali became a super hit, and the third most subscribed channel on YouTube in India, the IPL ended on 25th April. But the panga still goes on. Only gods can save your team. Anything, anything, anything. Hey, hey, hey, don't anything me, okay? Don't anything me ever again. Are you loving it now? Okay, this is another lesson from Blackjack. People who play Blackjack would know this. You know, when it comes to basic strategy, you need to know the complete basic strategy if you need, if you have, if you want to have any hope of winning in Blackjack, when you sit down at the casino to play. Complete knowledge of basic strategy. When to hit, on what cards to stay, on what cards to double down, on what cards to split. So what happens is that we are not fully prepared. We are strong in few areas, but kind of weak in areas that kind of occur infrequently. Now that's the same with life. In life too, it's always the exceptions that beat us. You know, we kind of coast along, coast along, coast along, and suddenly, whether it's a loss of job, loss of relationship, it's the exceptions that beat us. Or for example, if you look at what's happening right now, who could have predicted this? But now, could we take the time to understand as much whatever field that we are in? I'm sure people, all of you are here. You're from different fields, you know? You might have different sort of paper suits, different businesses. How can we take this time that has been given to us and become as, as, as knowledgeable in our businesses about the clients that we are dealing with? How can we get that complete, complete knowledge so that whenever exceptions happen, which beat us in life, we are prepared. And we don't lose our bank, you know? I know these are, these are very, very tough times and this might sound a little simplistic, but they're just the thought that I thought I'll leave you with. Other things that's really important in Blackjack, again, is the, which is really important in life also, is to never lose control. And every time you sit down to play, there are times that we will be dealt that card. We will have losing streaks when nothing is going in our favor. And that's, that's when what happens is at times frustration and anger takes over on the table. So you start doubling down your bets, right? But you are getting a losing streak. So when you double down your bets, you lose more and soon you've got nothing left. And so we lose control of our emotions and we end up losing everything. We need to be prepared. We need to know that these streaks are a part of life. They're part of the game. Just like the winning streak. And we have to patiently tide over them. So currently the situation that we are finding ourselves in can we approach it more optimistically, knowing and not, not, not lose our balance. Not, I know a lot of us will feel, will, will feel, you know, real, real hardships, loss of business, loss of job also at times, loss of jobs. But can we, can we, can we be, can we take it calmly? Can we kind of tide over it, knowing that winning streak will also come? And let me just tell you, give you one little story about this. And I'll take it, make it quicker now, because we are running out of time. This was a film that we did for Sony Bravia in Singapore. This was when I was in Singapore. And we had won the pitch for Sony Bravia to launch Sony Bravia television. Color, color like no other was its main, great colors was the main platform idea. And the story that we have presented to the client was that on the Great Wall of China, we will have these colorful dominoes kind of tumbling down the entire Great Wall of China and coming down to one of the villages. So Great Wall of China, a very monochromatic Great Wall of China, and these colorful dominoes will tell a story of what Sony Bravia's color is. We won the pitch on this. The client gave us the go-ahead. We were very, very thrilled. And soon, this was in 2008. A month before we are supposed to go to the shoot, China announced that there can't be any shooting taking place in China prior to, six months prior to the Beijing Olympics, because Beijing Olympics was happening at that time. So we were caught in a bit of a bind, you know, and so client called us for a meeting and we were, we knew that we are now losing the pitch, I mean losing the business because they had, they had bought a story which had China and now China was not possible. So I remember we were sitting in our, in the, in that, in that meeting and I was like, you know, so as I was telling you, not to lose your senses, not to get frustrated, not to get angry, not to get depressed. And I'm sitting there in front of the client and I'm thinking that I'm sure there's still a way of saving it. There's still a way of saving it and I'm thinking and I'm thinking hard. How can we save this film? And then suddenly it struck me that the first film of my entire career that I shot was in Jaisalmer and suddenly Jaisalmer came in front of my eyes and I realized that Jaisalmer is also a monochromatic city. So as the client was looking at us for answers, I, without missing a beat, told the client that, you know, we've got an idea and that idea is not to shoot at in China, but to shoot because China is not possible, but to shoot it in Jaisalmer, which is also monochromatic and I quickly googled the pictures and showed them right there and then and they gave the approval. So again, making as much of the resources that you've got without losing your balance, without getting emotional, without getting frustrated, without getting angry at what, at the cards that the life that the life has dealt us. So this is the film that we made and was loved a lot. Take a look. Very much against the kind of situation that we are in, but let me just explain to you a bit. What happens in Blackjack is that there are times that you get really good cards and you get a chance to split and double down and those are the times which ultimately decide if you play them right, whether you will get up from the table winning or losing. So what I meant by never play safe is to be as we come out of this mess. Are we prepared? As we go forward, there will be opportunities. There will be opportunities of doubling down. There will be opportunities of, you know, of putting everything behind those opportunities. So will we be ready for those opportunities when, as and when they happen? So what I'm trying to say is we are in a mess right now. Everything is looking gloomy, but as there is a finite time to it and I'm quite hopeful that it all gets solved in due time, but as we come out of it in the time that has been given to us, are we preparing ourselves well so that when the opportunity comes, we are ready to double down. You know, and let me quickly tell you one story on this, which is McDonald's number one, this is when I was in DDB, I was working on this account and we were supposed to present a campaign to them on friendship. That was a platform idea. So it occurred to me that instead of doing a normal ad campaign, a 30-second ad, can I write the new friendship anthem for India? So instead of an ad, can I write an anthem for India? An anthem that people will use five years down the line, ten years down the line. Every time they do a farewell video, there are also several videos that you see on YouTube, could this become the soundtrack of all those friendship videos? And I wrote the song, I wrote the anthem, presented the idea to the client that it's not an ad, but we want to now do an anthem and a music video and launch it as a platform idea of number one Yari. And client was visionary enough and daring enough at that time to actually double down when this opportunity came. And they gave us the permission to do it. They approved it with all their heart. And this McDonald's number one, number one Yari as a platform has now gone, has now exploded. It's there in there, there in so many different avatars. There are programs around it. There are music videos around it. There are, there are, there are television programs, branded, huge amount of branded content around it, but started as a small idea. Take a look at this film. Now, this film, I liked the story so much that I decided to direct this film also. So, I wrote it and directed this. This seems to be an issue with the voice. And we have, we have ranked it up. Amazing works. Sorry, you know that it got, you know, there was a big, a bit of a break in between. And so I took kind of break my, I took so much time. And next time, hopefully the internet will work better. So I'll just, yeah, we're all working remotely. So yeah, sorry. So I'll just, just close it by saying that A, it was great to be here. And B, I think it's, it's the way we respond to this adversity that will make all the difference. Look at the silly keeps saying, you know, I don't have enough time to do this. I don't have enough time to do that. But now we've been given the time. What is the new things that we are learning? How we are preparing ourselves for, for when it all kind of goes off. And the other, one really, really important thing that I wanted to kind of leave you with is that what the kind of situation that we are in, the kind of big thing that has happened in this case is that whatever is the past is the past. It's actually, everything has to be kind of looked at anew. It has, because this has challenged us in absolutely new ways. We have to leave what is behind and see whether we can write a new story, you know, newer way of doing things. How can we use technology more? How can we use, you know, how can we use resources more? How can you use, use our network more? So newer way of looking at things and basically writing an absolutely new story. Great. So thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. It was amazing. Very inspirational. What a work that you have. Ladies and gentlemen, in due respect to time, I would now introduce my co-panelist, Rahul Kurana. He's a co-founder of a company called Unbrand. Unbrand is a specialist. Thank you so much. Great having you. Unbrand is a, is a, is a young startup which is, which is focusing on SMEs, wanting to build brand. A lot of you guys been, been looking forward to this panel of great speakers. So Rahul, thank you very much without wasting any time. I'll straight away dive into the topic. You know, I was so mesmerized with whatever Sonal had shared and, you know, we had chosen him as the keynote speaker because storytelling is going to play a very, very critical role. What, you know, so the messaging, you know, the kind of messaging, you know, we need to put out there without sounding opportunistic. I thought somebody like Sonal Dabral, you know, I won't call them reference points, but, you know, who's seen that, been there. So of course, there is no reference point to the situation that we are all in. But I think we marketers are sometimes, you know, in fact, most of the times we are supposed to be storytellers as well. So I have an interesting speaker lineup for this session, you know, and the topic is also very, very pertinent, which is altering marketing strategies in record time. I don't know how many of you can, you know, relate to this topic. Of course, you know, I, I, when I heard about this topic, I could so, you know, I've lived this, you know, for last three weeks, what, you know, we had, you know, the kind of liberty we used to have about a week, you know, in, till about February, you know, of time, things have completely, you know, changed upside down, you know, we are, we are, you know, we are called or, you know, we are required to take decisions within no time. So I'll straight away, you know, introduce the company that I represent, it's called Unbrand, you know, so it came from my own background, you know, I've spent the largest part of my life, you know, so largest part of my professional life with a company called, of course, everybody would know, Orgilvi, where Sonal also came from. This is, this is what we do. So, you know, I, it actually came from my own experience, whenever we would sit for a client briefing, you know, the market, you know, like, whenever there was a market, like, description, it was always about 70% unbranded and 30%, you know, branded share and out of which about 70%, you know, the client would have and, you know, he wanted to get more share out of within that 30% space. So, you know, what we do, we are the only solution provider that originated from India. Of course, there are a lot of solutions, such solution providers globally, but Indian, you know, like India, we are the only ones as of now, you know, we influence all aspects of private brand development, you know, from strategy to execution to supply chain, consumer engagement, as well as sales promotion. So, what is a private brand? You know, private brand is actually an in-store brand, typically a modern trade outlet or an e-commerce platform, they see an opportunity within a category, they launch their own brand or they launch their own label. So, when a manufacturer, you know, produces something directly for a retailer, it's called private brand. We see it in many categories, you know, there are so many examples. Amazon basics is one such example. You know, we see this opportunity, you know, like really, really pertinent, you know, at this point of point in time, particularly when, you know, the world is, you know, is at almost at loggerheads with China, and India definitely seemed to be an alternate, you know, to shift their manufacturing capacity. Japan is already doing that. So, situation, you know, so, you know, so it doesn't look, it looks very, it looks promising, I would say, for the manufacturing sectors. So, we work, you know, our purpose of existence, you know, is to help out, you know, contract manufacturer to get more businesses from, business from retailers, as well as an entrepreneur. So, how it typically functions. So, it has become, yeah. Good morning. Yeah, hi. Good morning. Sorry. Can I continue? Is that something that you wanted? Yeah. So, let's introduce the problem, I think. Yeah. So, how it functions particularly, you know, we live in a direct to consumer, you know, like, you know, so, and anybody today is capable of launching a brand. So, right from conceptualization to R&D to sourcing to even supply chain, we partner with you, whether you're a retailer or entrepreneur. So, how it typically functions, I was giving you an idea. I was giving you an example, you know, that, let's say you think of some backy idea, as simple as, you know, or as crazy as that I want to come out with like a cranberry flavor, pre-packaged or pre-mixed vodka, you know. Now, this idea may seem very simple on the face of it, but there are so many things involved within this idea, you know, the R&D, the sourcing, you know, the labeling, the certification, finding the supply chain, you know. So, there is so many, you know. So, of course, anybody, you know, investments is not the first, you know, the only critical factor. But, you know, what is most critical is, what is most critical is things, you know, are done properly. So, this is exactly what we do, we help you build private brands, you know, you have product idea, we help you bring it to life, help you grow, you know, whatever your needs, we can create, you know, a customized solution that delivers product, you know, which leads to stronger connection with your shopper. So, we've got shopper insights, you know. So, as a portfolio, so I'll straight away come to, you know, there are three products, you know, within the portfolio as of now, which is, first is Unbrand Asia 2020, which is going to be India's biggest expo for contract manufacturers and private labels. UBR is the marketplace, it is a peer-to-peer shared marketplace, you know, yesterday I was speaking with Anand and, you know, he he mentioned about something about shared economy, how, you know, every company, particularly in B2B space, will, you know, will be ready probably or open to share their resources or to share their underutilized capacity. So, we of course thought it in B2C, you know, perspective, but you know, why not a B2B or, you know, an agency or a company with underutilized capacity could be utilized, you know, by some other company. Yeah, so I think, so this is exactly, this is underdevelopment, we'll be live by, hopefully by May 2020. The Unbrand consultancy we've already launched, so we are happy to receive any briefs, you have a product idea, straight, this is perhaps, you know, I would say world's first non-tech product development platform, you can straight away reach us, you know, if you have a product idea. So, this is something about us, now, you know, I would like to introduce my first panelist, so how I've structured this entire session, you know, in the best interest of time, we've already exceeded, you know, the time that it's spent in first session, so we'll keep it like a rapid fire for each of the speaker. One by one, each speaker will come, they will share their perspective, they will share about, you know, how life has changed in last one month, you know, and how do they foresee the future, so, you know, they will share their presentation, and after that, we will take up question and answer. So, without wasting any time, I'll straight away invite Mr. Anand Chakravathi, who is the managing director with Essence Group M, which is the world's biggest media agency. Anand, over to you, thank you. Hi everyone, I hope my audio is clear. Yeah, Raul, can you hear me clearly? Yes, I can hear you very clearly. Okay, awesome, great. Well, good afternoon everybody, and I'm going to dive straight into it. You know, so, I think Raul has introduced me, I think, you know, I was looking at actually ending, you know, my session with the thought, but I thought let me begin with it. So, firstly look, I don't have a presentation, but I'm going to share some of my thoughts and pointers to you, and I'm talking from the perspective of being in B2B marketing myself in two ways. One, I work with clients who are fundamentally focused on B2B marketing themselves, and we help manage their investments in media, we help consult them on things that they can do to improve their B2B marketing. But my business itself, you know, being an agency is also, I'm servicing clients myself, so I myself, I'm a B2B marketer myself. And, you know, everything I'm going to talk about is really going to come from both these perspectives. So, something that I was going to end the session with, but I'm going to begin by saying that, you know, we know that this, this too shall pass and pass it will. But I think what really, really matters is whatever happens on the other side of the situation will depend a lot on what we do during the weeks and months ahead, right? And I know it's easier said than done. Each of your businesses are in very different life stages. The challenges that you service or face today are going to be quite different given the fact that your product or service may fall in an essential bucket or an unessential bucket, right? And, but the fact is that, look, I don't have to tell you that these are unprecedented times, right? Even if you have experienced the 2008-2009 global slowdown, this is nothing like the situation then. And therefore, as a result, the truth is that there is no playbook, there is no ready-made framework available, you know, to put out there for people. So whatever I'm really sharing with you today is really based on part experience, part intuition, and part very importantly, looking across what's happening in other businesses and other markets across the world and picking up cues from them, right? I mean, this is a time that I think I'm really relearning and unlearning and learning new things because the fact is that you're seeing how businesses, whether it's B2C or B2B are reacting to the situation in different ways, both in India and across the world. And the good part is that there's a treasure trove of information available online, which is a great source of actionable insights as well. So I would definitely say that while this webinar hopefully will give you some food for thought and insights, I think there's a lot more out there that one can actually look at. Now let's look at what are the some of the things that we definitely need to do and looking at it from a B2B marketing perspective. I think the first thing is, you know, going back to our solid basics here. I think the first thing is making sure that you stay really in close contact with your customers and even more now, irrespective of whether your business has gone down with them or not, right? As because the fact is that as much as there is pain in your business, remember that they are going through the same themselves, maybe at a varying degree, but certainly they are feeling the pain. I think what's really important and something that we are trying to do is really understand what are the challenges for our clients, even if it is not relevant to the current product or service we offer them. But what's important is if you understand their challenge and then we focus on really how can we support them there, whether it means creating collaborations with other clients we have in our portfolio who may have, let's say, potential solutions for these clients and bringing them together, whether it's looking at a larger ecosystem of our, you know, people who service us, which is, let's say, people in the broadcasting business, people in the newspaper service. And I'll give you an example of this, right? So we have an e-commerce client and obviously their supply chain as well as their distribution chain has completely broken down because the government doesn't consider e-commerce as a currently as an essential service except for the pantry services. Now the fact is that they are obviously they are now trying to gear up their delivery mechanisms as well and for their logistics team who we traditionally don't deal with at all are obviously looking for opportunities to partner. On the other hand, you have, let's say, the newspaper industry which has a massive distribution system where there are people in every single city who pick up newspapers, distribute them to different hubs in every locality and from there they have a whole ecosystem of people who actually deliver the newspapers from home. Now this ecosystem has been disrupted extremely badly because a lot of buildings and colonies are not allowing newspaper delivery to happen. But here you have delivery system on one hand that is underutilized and then you have an e-commerce brand which is looking to enhance or improve their delivery system and can we bring the two together? So this has nothing to do with the media solutions or the analytics work or the marketing consultancy that I talked to this client about but just by understanding what was the challenge and then looking at an opportunity that emerged in another conversation I was able to bring them together. I think the second thing is making sure that your digital channels if you're using them for marketing are absolutely up to date whether it's a website whether it's your blog whether it's your social network profiles whether you have a google my business listing make sure that it's up to date this is a good time to ensure that your digital channels are absolutely up to date and the next big thing is to optimize your digital channels. I think if you're doing SEO make sure that you refresh it because what potential clients are searching for now may be very different from what they were searching for before. Similarly look at your social and online advertising and let's say if you're using any kind of influencer efforts you really really need to look very sharply and very closely at data emerging from these efforts and then reallocate budgets appropriately to things that are working for you. I think one of the lessons that we can take for China is the utilization of video right and how can you convert your marketing message or activities to video and if you have live video access let's say to LinkedIn for some of your let's say key team leads or your business development heads now is a good time to start using it and why do we say that I think because whether it is the average consumer or customers the fact is that digital video has been consumed in very very large quantity and two digital video is very very easily shareable which means that it's very if you have a marketing message or a product or service message out there which is targeting potential clients it's very likely that if one of them finds it interesting they may actually share it in an ecosystem where you have many more potential clients. I think one great example of this is that during the covid crisis in China a lot of Chinese B2B companies started using VChat video to actually create sales pitches to actually talk to potential clients about their product or service. Now we may not have VChat in India but we have other ways to reach out to B2 potential clients and using video is something that could be one of the you know basic steps that one can take from a media perspective. If I step in and say what should be our focus for our organization and people and I would like to focus on really three key areas that I think in my experience I think is really really critical in tidying over this current slowdown. I think the first area is really about agility and being really really agile because as the weeks go by you know your customers are going to identify newer challenges the challenges what they are seeing today are going to be different as we go ahead in this lockdown which has now been extended to May 4th and beyond right and every new challenge to my mind that they are facing could be an opportunity for you so anticipating some of these and responding quickly to others in a way will also help you secure your current business and more importantly future growth. I think within your organization you really look at you to think about whether you can redefine structures and skill sets because we have to start looking at what is going to be important to our clients in the months ahead because their businesses are not going to remain the same. You know as clients have seen the use of technology as clients have seen and things that disrupted their business how they've been able to adapt in this new the new new as I call it I think they will have new expectations from their partners and it's very very important to start developing these capabilities internally. Of course you can't develop capabilities overnight but making that beginning by identifying what are likely to be the skill sets you need to have in your organization and then starting to think about how you develop them internally is going to be really critical. I think the second pillar I would say to focus on and this may sound like a cliche right is innovation but I think the truth is that you need to have product teams that are looking to be geared up to seize emerging opportunities and either improve add on to your existing product or service or in some cases there even may be a transformation in your product delivery or service and again if you look at early signals coming out of China you're seeing that there are quite a number of businesses which have had to change their product or service delivery to clients because the new normal is very different from what it was before this crisis started. You know and I don't think innovation is a buzzword anymore in a COVID and post COVID world I think it's going to become a lifeline for businesses because the disruption that we're seeing now is not going to just happen in April and May but it's going to happen over the next six to nine months for sure and each time that disruption hits a client's business there is a potential opportunity for you but there's also a potential drop or loss for you if you don't really react to it in time and I think to make all of this possible what's critical is to have a very open line of communication with your clients you know bounce off possible ideas and any idea at this time is important and the reason I say that is because just like you don't have a playbook for you to be marketing neither does your client have a playbook which is readily available for them to tackle the situation their business is in and the truth is all of them are looking for new ideas so this is a great time to kind of keep them engaged you're doing sessions with your team on what are the possible solutions we can offer the client no matter how small and sharing with your clients I think to quote the cliche you know necessity is truly the mother of invention and I think this is the time where you need to do it so for example in some organizations and I don't it depends on the size of the organization they've actually created two teams and one team that focuses on the present the present delivery of product and service and servicing existing clients and there's a separate team which has been created to only focus on what is likely to be important in the next three to six to nine months and getting that team to focus entirely on either looking at how your current product or service needs to change or starting to develop a completely new product line or a new service line that has potential in the months and years ahead and that's one way some organizations are tackling it I can tell you that you know within our organization itself you know we are already looking at restructuring teams we've gone through an entire skill mapping exercise and we've identified what are the skill sets that we think our clients are going to be investing in in the months and years ahead and if we are not prepared with those skill sets then we are going to lose out and therefore starting to develop them despite the constraints it's not going to be easy but we have to start identifying and developing them that's the only way we'll be able to be ready for the future and the last point I'll leave you with is this service I think all of you at the B2B business know the importance of this but I think over indexing on service in the short term will really help you ensure long-term relationship with clients right and I think even how well we service even a diminished requirement for a client can make a world of a difference right because the fact is that holding on to and cementing an existing relationship is always easier than trying to acquire or nurture a new one during these times and I think that's something we need to really remind ourselves of and no matter how hard I think the fact is that you know we will have to show compassion for our clients and their businesses despite our own tough times that we're going through you know offering deals and solutions which you know while being very very consultative in our approach when we're servicing them and while it may not bring revenues immediately I think ultimately I think it will help us really maintain restore and enrich these relationships and that will help really bring in the budgets and revenue when things start to return to normal I really hope this helped thank you so much for your time so thank you Anand I've been receiving some questions also but we will take it towards the end of the session without again wasting any time and straight away invite my next panelist who is you know so who heads MasterCards lab he's a director at MasterCards very very renowned sales and marketing professional why we've got him so that you know he can represent the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem you know I think his virtual background pretty much talks about you know what he's capable of doing in terms of technology so over to you Varun thank you Thanks very much Rahul and thanks Anand for setting a good perspective on my presentation first of all good afternoon everyone I think you know in the current coronavirus time it's it's great to sort of connect with everybody virtually as MasterCard we sort of understand the situation that everyone is in right now we you know we know it's difficult for families for people with families and also for businesses right what we are doing as as an organization is again keeping a close watch on what's really happening in the ecosystem and at the same time ensuring that we are able to really provide and protect firstly for our our employees and also provide services for our consumers right if you look at what's really happening across the organization I think the most important thing is to have continuity of business so as MasterCard we've built you know resilient core systems to make sure our businesses continue as usual we have a comprehensive business continuity planning so I think those are a key importance when even before we look at innovation or how we move forward so I think our commitment to our customers to provide services and core for us is really providing you know commerce so we we continue to do that today and for the future we'll be making sure that we are able to provide services for commerce as a network and without further ado let me just share my screen with all of you and really present you know a view on really how we look at innovation and how we sort of you know look at connecting with people when it comes to innovation as well so let me know when you guys can see my screen okay great so you know the reality for all of us even before we got into the new normal as we speak now is that the consumers are evolving right all of us in our various different realities be it you know as entrepreneurs as startups as big organizations know that there is convergence which is happening today what do I mean about convergence right most of us today use a smartphone have a smart watch we are connected to each other with our devices with our smart TVs with so many of devices that are there today even much before today's reality virtualization was everywhere e-commerce was continuing to be a great trend now it's become even more important than it could ever be you know I was reading the other day we're having this conference on zoom that's apparently now having much more valuation than some of very very established companies in a matter of few weeks right so how do we make sense of the new consumer reality how do we continue to make sure that we evolve in this convergence I think that's something as an organization we all should be cognizant of and as mastercard and as mastercard labs the team that I represent I think this is something that we are very focused on if you look at you know a lot of time people talk about that hey is technology or is innovation limited to only certain brands or certain categories of industries in my personal view and view that we have as an organization absolutely not and this is the example that you see on the screen is the most powerful example who would have thought that a consumer brand which is making shoes so many months back has already been evolving in the product category making it virtual how do how do they virtually connect with consumers how do they give options to consumer to play with their product I think those are the signs and the things we should be you know looking for when we're talking about innovation when we're talking about desirability and we're talking about B2B marketing all of this is again a sign for us to see how do we continue to evolve at the same time another thing that we're all aware of the way regulations work across the 200 plus countries that we operate and as mastercard we know that there is a great regulatory environment in every every country or every market that we are a part of there is a complex regulatory environment that we are focusing on how do you make sure that you continue to innovate at the same time being cognizant of what's what the ecosystem has in store for you so I think these the consumer trends the convergence how you look at product these are the things which we kept at the back of our mind and interestingly you know what we do at labs to sort of give you a perspective also is that how do you make sure that you know you're able to filter out the no signals from the noise right there is so much noise around internet of things artificial intelligence so on and so for this so much happening around the world how do you make sense of it and I think the purview that we have as mastercard labs is that and as as then the r&d teams that we look at is that how do you filter out the signals from this noise and that's something I would leave as an important purview for people to look at for simply from our perspective we have we've made these as three pillars and again each each organization has their own strengths and reasons to do what they need to do for us we've kept it in three pillars one is an r&d team which is focusing on building new products and platforms we're sort of you know the blue ocean think tank from the organization where we're able to sort of create different platforms play with purpose it does not mean that we're building things which are not relevant and that's really the second pillar comes into the play the team that I represent which is innovation management how do you make sure that you're able to connect the dots of what's really relevant today what is it that your business needs perhaps tomorrow but at the same time how do you make sure that you provide the thought leadership not just for your organization but for your consumers as Anand was also sharing that it's really important that you continue to connect with your customers as mastercard we've been doing that very proactively to all our issuers merchants etc our teams have been connecting really just to start a dialogue with right how do you connect with them to make sure that you're able to support them in things that they can't do for example for you and us getting on to a zoom call hosting this zoom call sharing presentations may be very simple but maybe for some some organization some customers of your something as simple as using the slide or a myro tool may not be as easy how do you continue to even think of those things is is important when it comes to providing thought leadership and and goes without saying and and what you're seeing on the screen by the way is not specific only to current times this is our mantra even before we got into the current scenario which is the third pillar for me which is transformative partnerships we are very humble to recognize the fact that you know we can't do everything on our own and that's really where it's important to engage with the ecosystem and that's where we have a structured program called start path I'll talk to you about it very briefly on you know what do we do with start path as well but broadly these are the three pillars that you look at when it comes to our approachance in looking at innovation and what we do as mastercard and mastercard labs importantly I think a lot of people ask me this that you know are you really just you know exploring things which are you know let's say 20 years ahead of time or 50 years ahead of time you know the answer is very simple we follow the simple principle of how do I connect desirability feasibility but at the same time make sure that it's commercial today so yes we are prepared for the future yes we are continuously evolving when it comes to safety and security be it our core systems everything we continue to evolve and invest in technology to make sure our customers have the right products and platforms at the same time we're also evolving to see what is really desirable for the future to make sure me and my customers are really out there when it comes to their products and the platforms which means that today if there's a need to make sure that there is a platform to provide provenance solutions on a blockchain can mastercard provide it yes do do we have solutions to support our customers when it comes to artificial intelligence or simply an augmented reality API right you you see today right now I'm not sitting in office I am working from home there is a virtual background that I'm using how do I make sure that there are augmented reality payment apk is that if on the screen we want to buy a product of a customer they can actually use the augmented reality apk as and get those going so those are the some of the things that we looked at when it comes to wearing a strategic lens so so again that's the perspective that I wanted to leave you on in terms of the strategic lens when it comes to labs and what we do as mastercard moving on to the third pillar in the interest of time is connecting with emergent startups and that's something that we are we are very proud of this is a platform we started close to five years ago and every year we get about 5000 plus application across the globe we select about 40 startups in a year to be a part of the program it's a six month program and to clarify it's not an incubation program it's a program wherein we're able to provide scale for the startups at the same time my ecosystem in 200 plus countries of banks and merchants how do we get them together for a structured pilot that's what the program is all about and we we we make sure that the you know the startups who qualify for it or who we approach for it are really able to provide value in the real term it's you know while we do support the startups in terms of helping them with let's say a sandbox environment or helping them with other other platforms but in terms of simply providing the whole ecosystem the equation is what we look at this is another important view for people who ask these questions that do we only work with fintech startups or startups who are providing payment technologies the answer is simply no if you look at this chart in fact 75 percent of our engagement that we do is actually outside of the fintech ecosystem and that's really what adds to the strength of 250 plus products that mastercard already has how do i make sure that i evolve and continue to work with different partners who are providing AI services loyalty solutions financial inclusion capabilities and are able to really provide value to our customers again important is keeping your customer to the core whatever we do as mastercard as a team within mastercard which is labs is keeping the customer at the core i would not go out and really scout for a startup which is not really adding any value to my ecosystem or to me as an organization right purely from a valuation perspective or that company may grow in valuation that's something that we never look at in terms of a reason to get a company on board at start path what's most important is what is the value that startup springs how innovative they are how they can support the ecosystem and i think that's the message for for people who are looking at this time that how can you work with your ecosystem i know it's a difficult time for all of us to collaborate how do you collaborate with the ecosystem to get things going is something important again we help the platform with the platform with monthly connects quarterly connects and the structured pilots for the startups but you know the formal presentation is over but you know it's few thoughts i wanted to leave you with when it comes to looking at b2b because for us mastercard everything that we do is primarily b2b to see it's driven through our partners such as issuers and merchants and what we are doing in this unprecedented time is really reaching out for them we're not making use of this time as an opportunistic marketing it's not the time to do any of that we're simply being there for our customers we are starting few initiators which is awareness a lot of you know that contactless transaction or tap and go transaction is something which helps people stay away from cash and you know getting getting the virus through cash so that's something that we are helping our partners with simply going with them with one of the biggest retail stores that you will see we are coming up with an education video that's the marketing that we are doing there is no offers there is no you know use of talking about use mastercard specifically as a product but simply an education video on how they can use contactless at retail transactions we have partnered with confederation of all india traders which represents 70 million merchants and again we are doing a video we're doing whatsapp reach out we have started a digital india campaign with them we're in through the trade body associations how can we make it simpler and better for them something as simple as how can we help them start their own line store if a small merchant or kirana shop wants to do it how can we do that those are the sort of initiatives we have taken as an organization when it comes to financial inclusion and support globally we have pledged over 100 million dollars to help bill in melinda gates foundation we are working with msme category to really support on those categories we're working with hdfc bank and the millennia card really again just to reach out to the millennials and say how can they help transact those online it's more around education at this point in time and making services available the platforms available that we are focusing on not about really making use of marketing for anything else so i think that's something that i would leave you with and from a startups perspective there are so many trends happening i don't know if you've seen air bnb sharing a video recently and an emailer saying that you can actually start learning from those people who were earlier renting out their houses so those are the evolving times that startups need to look at keep the basic principles in place use design thinking use that look at what's really important for your customers and more than anything i think have that empathy and connect with partners to see how you can all you know come out of this together so those are my thoughts and happy to take questions i know we're pressed for time but happy to connect after this to take questions so thank you very insightful for startups again we are all running behind our schedule so i'll straight away without wasting any time call upon our next speaker mr govind raj awar sadha he's from he's he heads enterprise solutions at vodafone idea so go with i would request you to please keep it very brief we will take up questions i am receiving a lot of questions on whatsapp i would request all of you to please post it on the chat box if we are unable to take up all the questions within the stipulated time we promise you we will respond to you within 48 hours you know we will address all the questions so please feel free to ask anything to any of the panelists thank you sure go now over to you yeah thank you thanks rogel i hope i'm audible in my screen is visible as well yes clearly thank you okay um thanks i'm going then part of the vodafone idea business services team and i'll lead the marketing there uh in the next five to six minutes um i thought i'd share some perspectives and some practitioner view on what the b2b marketing strategies are and how we are pretty much uh throwing everything out of the window what we used to do before uh but before that let me share uh what i went through as a thought process in the morning i clearly had two big decisions to take one is what's my dress code for this webinar and i clearly come to one conclusion that i think the trousers are not relevant anymore and the second big decision is what's the wall at the background um clearly being based out of mumbai i can tell you that not many houses are designed for work from home and these are all mid-shift uh desks and clearly i see a big opportunity whether you call it b2c or b2b to go and redesign all the homes for the new normal so um let me begin with asking your sentiment and i think you could leave your thoughts on the poll what is that one word you think best describes the post the pandemic situation i hear uh post may third or whatever is a lockdown time frame so what do you think is that one word that will redefine uh how the situation would look like as you um type the poll and i check the result on the poll window um i clearly thought before this pandemic they were all looped about using the words like digital transformation um clearly transformation as a word or disruption as a word and clearly if you um see the social memes going out the word it is very clear who is driving digital transformation i think the answer is right in front of us so it's the it's a current situation so um moving on um clearly i think i've built some thoughts but i think i clearly kind of aim it to um ensure that all of us get to hear the other speakers as well firstly um what do we see or what do i see as the defining trends there are many out there and you can read many reports and i'm happy to share those links clearly something that struck me is the changing be could be the cios and the cto's and the startup founders or the consumers like you and me consuming uh direct to consumer services clearly the mecan stadium i found it quite telling uh tells you that the world forever has changed and it calls out three clear trends one is we're all going to spend more time with family which is true second it will become more conscious about environment and we believe that uh we will contribute to reduction in carbon emissions and third our consumption patterns our water value in life is going to clearly change and we want to focus clearly on what really matters in life second bit and it's what the marketers have all been harping about there's always been a technology adoption curves and the broken chasms early adopters date laggards clearly there has never been a moment even in b2b more apt and now where the lines have been more clear distinct as a pre-covid or a pre-pandemic and post-pandemic the technology adoption is more equitable right from the toddlers to the people of 90s right from startups and the SMEs and the micro SMEs to the global companies so it's been more democratic second there is a whole new segment that has evolved and we did a research around the 600 global companies and it emerges that there are about 3 million just amongst the 600 companies 3 million new first time work from home category of workforce clearly that's a new segment we don't understand what their priorities are how the work life balances are and third we clearly are seeing our customers saying that even for a basic commodity service that we used to offer like a SIM card you cannot offer it anymore directly physically because it calls for the delivery and the lockdown and stuff so the clearly the buying patterns and the service patterns I think Anand referred to the service clearly becoming can I do it sitting at home so what are you how are you relevant to these times and the third bit is about how the companies we see are how overnight change the way they have been decisions and I can tell you example of just a simple tool like a Webex or a conferencing tool the decision time frame was close to one to three months anyway between that now it's now about 45 minutes you may not believe me but we have got many customers whom we turned on the G Suite or the Microsoft or the audio conferencing services that we normally sell overnight or in the macrofours clearly the the CIO and CTO have become more conscious about empowering the digital work forces second the supply chain risks because we have been sourcing traditionally from the manufacturing powerhouses of the countries the companies are forced to really look at the geopolitical risks in a very different light and clearly we see more technology investments going into the supply chain and sorry I missed out the blockchain but IoT technologies like blockchain will probably be invested upon so that it gives more visibility to the end to end sourcing components and the third bit is about the people so all of us are getting used to the new normal and work is no longer the place you go to so so what is the new challenge for the line managers or for the corporate leaders it's about building the trust and like Anand and Varun alluded to how about you skilling or risk-killing learning and unlearning so clearly I can tell you that from my experience I also leave the training so we had about 70% of our training physical and 30% digital but for Q1 there's no alternative but to have 100% digital the training methodologies second point is I thought I'd share it might be relevant for the audience out here as to what's really happening in the in the B2B world when I talk about in the telecom firstly key important trend as the connectivity becomes oxygen is I think there are people who are keeping the lights on because we are in the essential services category like few others data consumption has shot up by 45% this is in the first two weeks of lockdown clearly I think it's a quite an evident trend but what is important and what I see is more relevant is in the so-hosts in the startups even as they go through the challenges they clearly are talking to us are having a different conversation earlier it used to be India it's a price conscious discussion but clearly right now three things are standing out when the enterprise is adopting technologies like other security where there's tech securing the endpoints of yours and mine because we're all working out of the land environments our collaboration tools or the customer intimacy tools like the interactive voice responses it's on three things that they are really conscious about that's come out in our research is one a price is important but that's not the first thing tell me that you're going to keep the service alive second that you would be proactive in understanding my situation my bcp policy or the work continuity and you are conscious about partnering with me rather than being a vendor and the third obviously is a flexible contracting because we all have we all have the contracts that have clauses that run to one to three years clearly some of them may not feature the force majors and some of these clauses and let me remind you all of us are not like the mulledon who have cashed in on the insurance so sometimes some people are lucky but clearly the times call for flexible contractings as well so let me with that jump to sharing my personal thoughts on marketing as a fraternity and I think there are many startups founders and the marketing folks what I thought I would contrast is what is business as usual and what do I call it as a new normal that pretty much is already on set in b2b I used to measure my team and I used to get measured by three hours there is no depth of acronyms in marketing as you can see revenues first degree or second degree am I contributing to the leads and thereby to the opportunities and to the revenues relationships how deep and wide am I bringing in the new sea level or the new founder contacts or the new proprietor contacts if it is an SME and third clearly is a brand repetition but what is changing is how relevant are the in these times and sorry I'm interrupting you here we are running really behind schedule so do you think you could just compute it and yeah okay so let me I agree let me call out one thing the ways of working and clearly is staying true to Raul's agenda which is about altering strategies so we used to take weeks and months to run a campaign or a research now the new normal is five days and if you don't believe me I'm going to share and leave this deck with you and Raul you could share and see those videos out there clearly there are two things that are examples one is the the global campaign that we did in Italy in five days with the consumers and customers contributing the whole campaign was shot in five days and nobody stepping out of the home and second the 600 customers research that I talked about was done completely work from home without an agency but with the team again five days so Raul the answer is there or there for you the agency's out there or the company's out there don't hold me to it but we'll try our best to stay to the truth normal Raul I think to be fair to you and the rest of the panelists I'm going to share this deck with you and if you could send it over to the audience they have all the links and I turn it over to you is very please thank you and please feel free to post any questions you would like to ask Govindraj we will definitely definitely revert to them within 48 hours so my next panelist Mr Rajesh Srinivasan I'll straight away you know ask him I would request him to straight away take it up and briefly you know share his perspective of you know how things for his clients have changed in last one month thank you over to you Rajesh can you hear us Rajesh if you could please unmute your audio am I audible now yes clearly thank you so much Raul so let me quickly jump into the description point is what I have here today for all of you first of all from B2B marketing strategy perspective we take when we take iceberg and iceberg as an analogy all the tip of the iceberg is all these mass brands which we see but at the end of the iceberg what we see what we don't see is all these B2B businesses which act like a backbone to all these businesses so from that perspective how we need to see this crisis and how we can handle this effectively I have just seven pointers so number one be more pragmatic so what do I mean by being more pragmatic is for any B2B business we need to understand our clients business and the customers of our clients also it means our customers serve other clients right so if we deeply understand the demand supply dynamics of our customers it will be easy for us to tailor make our strategy for them at this point of time nobody is willing to buy anything so it becomes even more relevant to deeply understand our customers so that we can stay relevant that is point number two so now if if we go back and see people conventional B2B in any B2B business the businesses which we serve for example when it comes to I'll give you an example of this vendor see he has promoted he's from Thirupur there is a place called Thirupur in Tamil Nadu he's a vegetable vendor selling tomatoes now he's running an offer which says like 15 rupees worth tomatoes only Rajeev sorry to interrupt you here if you could maximize the present presentation view it's not full screen just press alt f4 alt f4 I think I need to do from the beginning it has got yeah yeah if you could reshare your screen now if you could open your presentation system has got and one minute now we could we could take Pritima first yeah so Rajesh maybe we can take the presentation you know later you know I move to the next yeah yeah you can continue yeah thank you thank you thank you Rajesh till that time you fix you know yeah yeah so Pritima our next panelist we would request you know you to come and present your break Pritima Bhadwaj who's the CEO at Antapna Media she will share her perspective thank you over to you Pritima thank you Rahul and good afternoon everyone I know it's been a very long panel and we are going out of time so you know I've already got a sinker from my co-panelist Rahul to make it short and brief and I'm going to try to stick to that and I do understand all my co-panelists were sharing some presentation I also have some we might go overboard but still I'll try and skip two slides and go through some relevant ones just allow me a second Rahul is the screen visible yes it is visible if you could read the full screen my name is Pritima Bhadwaj I represent entrepreneur brand solutions entrepreneur brand solution is you know it's a entrepreneur media group we run print publication digital publication and a very hardcore focus is towards entrepreneur startups and SMEs we offer 360 degree solution we are into media we are into B2B events we are into advisory and transactional services I'm very proud to say that we read over 22 million unique audience every month across the globe we are in about eight countries we particularly lead the india and asia chapter for entrepreneur some of the communities we focus very strongly on our food and beverage retails hall business education entrepreneurship franchise startup salon and wellness we also happen to run three business magazine entrepreneur retailer and franchising world all three put together we have a you know readership of about 2.5 lakh audience we also cater to some other categories and we own some IPs which are very very popular now some of them are entrepreneur 2020 entrepreneur live which happens in USA Singapore and now India we do we are very strong in food and beverage we run Indian restaurant congress in different parts of the country we do very strong in franchising we do about more than 200 B2B consumer connect initiatives which are on-ground initiatives throughout the year on an average we do about 600 B2B events which is you know every day we do about two and people come to us and say that uh is it really too it's it's true that you know we have a very large team and we manage to pull two events every day and bringing about two to three thousand audience B2B audience together every day while it's not the same time anymore and we are more living in a virtual world now these are some of our visitors in India so we touch about 10.2 million monthly page views we have 6 million visitors we have a lack of circulation only for entrepreneur our readership is largely CEO, CFOs and entrepreneurship startup community you know while I don't know if it's relevant in today's time or not but I would I very quickly like to touch upon what entrepreneur brand solution is and I'll do it through one of the case studies we've done for Sprint Sprint is our client in USA and you know we created a project for them called Entrepreneur Grow Your Business so Sprint came to us and they said while we are very popular and one of the largest telecom businesses in USA but we want to go in-depth and have a larger engagement with the startup community so we created this elevator pitch program for them and I'm very very proud to say that it is like the new Shark Tank of America now Facebook has rated us as the top business programs in the country it's a typical elevator pitch it's a typical elevator pitch where we get about we get some founders of the organization coming and pitching if the idea is liked by the judges you know they get a chance to feature in various media they get a chance to get funding and I think it's running from last four years now and this year also it's continuing I think I've lost my screen somewhere I'll try to get it back very quickly so you know if you see the numbers and the graphs when we started we were hardly you know reaching out to about 400,000 audience and these all be to be audience and within a matter of months we reached to about 20.6 million community so that's that's the power of our media that's the power of a B2B media and it's it's growing continuously I don't have the latest number with me right now but it happens to be a very very successful and powerful program some other co-branded activities we are doing is we do a lot of work with Fifth Third Bank I think I'm going to skip this to save some time another very popular initiative of ours is Entrepreneur Live like I mentioned we do entrepreneur live in USA it's an on-ground activation program with more than 1,000 entrepreneurs startup and SME communities from various sectors we bring them together on a day's program we have a lot of startup pitches funding program you know one-on-one connect programs we do it in Singapore recently we've also launched it in India we've done it in Bombay Bangalore and we plan to take it to other cities as well there's a lot of work we also do for women entrepreneurship in the country so we do an on-ground activation program which is called Sheep Reneurs we also do a print program you know where we bring all the top women entrepreneurs of the country so you know the slide which I'm showing is class of 2019 we're also about to come up with a class of 2020 then we're also doing a couple of programs for the tech community tech entrepreneurial community we also I'm very very proud to announce that you know we are taking this as a virtual event now and this will happen on the 4th of May where we are bringing the top 50 technology entrepreneurs and about 3000 people to attend this program I welcome all of you to join this program we'll be happy to share the links with you later on you know now I'd really like to jump on that you know what we all have been going through in the last 21 days and what it really looks like now till possibly till the 3rd of May so you know earlier it was different now what we are doing as entrepreneurs as a community we are reaching out to all our clients we are talking to them I think sitting in the confines of our home it's very important to connect with our people which is not just our clients but also our employees so every day we try and have a you know call with most of our senior community try and tell them how we are coping up with this environment it's not possible that we might be able to help everyone and we have a solution for everyone but you know having a continuous dialogue I feel is very important with our employees and our consumers both other things which we have been doing continuously from the last 2021 days is that you know we are doing a lot of virtual webinars every day I think in in real community it's not possible to connect with thousands of people literally every day but we've launched a lot of webinars yesterday I was doing one on food and beverage and a good thing about while there are a lot of bads but a good thing about poverty is that you know the world is becoming smaller so you know I had panelists yesterday from USA from South Africa from Hong Kong you know when I do an on-ground event sometimes it becomes very difficult to get all of them together at one place but now because people are consuming content so much on the digital platforms that it's easier to bring them together I had about 500 plus restaurants joining this conversation with us yesterday day before that we were doing one on education which is called edtech before that I've done one on startup I've done on entrepreneur so every day literally I'm speaking to 500 plus business owners who are telling us what they are actually facing what the world looks like and I'll be very happy to share some polls we did during these interactions with them and you know and it's very very interesting you know we did a poll when we were doing a startup for consumer connector webinar two days ago and while we thought that you know some SMEs and startups would say that you know business will close permanently but if you see this slide it says not even a single person said that businesses will close permanently so this is what audience are saying lies while we have a lot of speculation and we are thinking this will happen that will happen but I think all startups and SMEs are really building the time and you know thinking what else they can do with their business they're spending a lot of time in their own learnings this is another poll we did on the same day when we when we talked about are you really facing financial crisis another important one is that you know nobody said while some said that we have we are not able to pay our employees but most of them said that the most important critical question is that sales have decreased but we are still trying to cope up with this environment we are learning new things we're establishing new things we as a media company we've been very hard into our on ground and print but we are getting virtual into virtual webinars digital we are printing a lot of content related to entrepreneur and startups you know while there are a lot of a lot of established media companies like economic time job story and others which I follow religiously but I'm very proud to say that we are one of the few organization which has a very large business connect so we are not just publishing story we are talking about business we are talking about impact we are talking about startups how can we save them how can they survive this is another poll which we conducted and while this is not relevant because now we are closed down to the third of May these are some of the stories which we are continuously talking about on our platforms and you know this is my last slide and the most important thing I would say you know and I would leave my thought with that in these difficult times when we are sitting in our homes and while we are thinking a lot there is a very big risk of being misunderstood by our own employees and by our own clients so what is very important for startups and SMEs is to communicate with all your clients continuously and I would also request all the SMEs and startups you know attending the seminar today that please go ahead and extend guidance and help to your client in whatever possible ways we can thank you Rahul. So thank you very much Pitma that was also quite insightful so we have already exceeded by 10 minutes you know I just want to ask you know maybe if we can take up questions offline if you can you know I understand there was some glitches in the beginning you know we ran behind schedule final session extended a bit beyond our you know beyond what was what we anticipated but we rest assured about it that we are completely committed and you know happy to address anything that you want to ask you can write to me you can note down my email id it's rk at unbrandasia.com I take full responsibility all the questions will be duly addressed individually so and all the presentation decks that you've asked for in the chat box will be delivered to you in your inbox very soon thank you very much and you have a fantastic day stay safe stay at home and all the very best thank you thank you so much for joining us thank you