 So, very good afternoon everybody. Hello and welcome to the exchange for media, EconClave 2020. E4M EconClave aims to bring the most enthusiastic minds together from different segments of the industry. Once again, a very warm welcome to all of you. My name is Khyati Kawa and I'm going to be your e-host for this E4M EconClave. Today, when COVID-19 has taken over most of our decision-making power, but still, practitioners don't stop to evolve or innovate. During these sessions, experts won't only share how they are managing their operations, but also share their thoughts on the revival and how they have streamlined the functionalities in the past one month. Also, we are available and live on E4M Portal, Facebook, Twitter, at E4M Tweets, Instagram and YouTube along with Zoom. Our official hashtag for this EconClave is the E4M webinar. Hashtag e-numerical 4M webinar. So, please do follow us and stay connected for our latest updates. Now, quickly moving on to our very first session for the EconClave. The pandemic has created uncertainty amongst all of us, whether individuals, organizations or brands. So, our first session is going to talk about, or rather try to answer, has this pandemic made brands more agile and created a new playbook for marketeers. And in conversation, we have with us Mr. Rahul Agarwal, managing director and chief executive officer of Lenovo, India. Rahul has over 24 years of professional experience and has held multiple leadership positions across Lenovo and IBM. Prior to his current role, he headed the commercial segment for Lenovo, India, the largest business for Lenovo, India. Before that, he headed marketing communications for Lenovo globally and is credited with setting up Lenovo Worldwide Marketing Hub in Bangalore, supporting 60 plus countries. Rahul will be in conversation with Dr. Anurag Batra, chairman and editor-in-chief VW Business World and Exchange for Media Group, who is an enthusiastic entrepreneur and an industry expert. Over to you, Dr. Batra. Thank you, Chathi, for that kind introduction. Welcome Mr. Rahul Agarwal to this Exchange for Media webinar, Exchange for Media conclave in a virtual format. As we discussed just before the webinar, we all are doing the best we can in the current circumstances. So how are you doing, Mr. Rahul Agarwal? Rahul, how are you dealing with this unprecedented pandemic, both on a personal level and a professional level? I think we are all dealing with it every day as it comes. But a few things that I've been telling people around me and my office colleagues, number one is to keep your mind calm. Because this is a time when a lot of uncertain information is being floated, which tends to stir the mind in the wrong way. So I'm telling people and myself to stay away from a lot of these unconfirmed information. Number two is not to over-analyze the impact of what this might have in the future. Logically speaking, when you don't know what this is really all about, what is the intensity, what is the longevity, what is the reason, what is the cure, then I think it's a little too premature to say that the world will change in a way that we won't be able to identify. And a lot of people are kind of panicking, imagining things. And I tell people that human beings have this amazing tendency to come back to their routine once things tend to roll back to normalcy. So in a few ways things will change, like work from home, less travel, more of these meetings. People here who travel a lot know how painful it is. If I have to come to Mumbai, it's a six hour painful process from my house to the door that I want to reach. But in many ways I think things may not change. The other internally what we're doing is a lot of communication. Every day I'm doing at least one meeting with the external stakeholder and at least one round table with my employees and almost a daily meeting with leadership team. A lot of employee engagement is happening today. And of course as any business would do in Iraq, we're doing a lot of plan A, plan B, plan C and cutting down expenses. So it's a lot of future planning. So fundamentally it's the way I'm spending my time that has changed a lot. It's not to review the current business, but to review our preparedness for different outcomes of the future. Thank you Rahul for laying out how you're dealing with so beautifully in a very authentic way, real way. Now I was in a conversation like this of business world with Debati Singh. She is now the senior VP at 3M in the headquarters at Minnesota and she was earlier in India. MD and CEO for 3M, a fellow Ben Gloria like you. And someone in the audience asked her a question and I want to give you the question. Everybody is referring to this pandemic as a black swan event. And he said it's a grey rhino event. So grey rhinos appear from time to time. They appear more often than a black swan. So if this is a grey rhino event and some experts believe that corona may resurface in the winter and it may be there for the next 18-20 months in some form till the vaccine is discovered at the fear of corona can go away. So tell us your ABC plan. I'm not asking for very specific, but if this is true and you yourself said ABC, tell us some scenarios. So I don't want to talk about the disease because the world has a lot of experts. There are 1500 medical papers which are coming out every week by the experts. 1500 every week and that's going up. And every organization, whether it's McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, E&Y, they are rolling out their analysis of what's going to happen. So I think in that context, my view is quite unimportant. And I would not take my own view seriously. So I'm trying to take one step at a time. Don't analyze too much. Keep your mind calm. Do the right things. By doing the right things, I mean cut the expense, control the expense and be nice to human beings. So for example, we're going out of our way to make sure that we don't have to let people go out of our way. I'm saying cut everything else, but let's not touch, let's not go there. Three, we are trying to do things from a CSR point of view. Donations, we are helping some hospitals, procure equipment and so on and so forth, which I think a lot of good companies are doing. But in my role, my professional role, I think all that I need to do is look at the category that we deal in. It has three scenarios because computer is a very interesting category. Many people think that it will grow. I'm not sure. In the short term, I'm not sure. So the thing that we're dealing with is if the market goes down by 20% is scenario. So A is market remains flat. That's scenario A. B is if the market goes down by 20%. C is if we are pleasantly surprising the market goes up by 5% or 10%, which is less likely. Then how do we run our P&L? How do we run our entire business processes? How do we manage our people? What expenses to cut? What to do about marketing? What messages to give to our customers? What messages to give to our employees, to our stakeholders? So I think it's a lot of that, which every week things change because people's opinion about the future changes very fast because there is nobody who can prove you wrong today about what you were saying about tomorrow. So you've been one, again, very real, saying that you're not sure whether the computer market will grow and you're factoring all scenarios and you're still optimistic and you're focusing on the human side of things and doing the best you can in these circumstances. While we talk of business, we will talk to you a little bit about marketing. Now you're in a leadership, you know, general management, MD, CEO role but you're also the brand owner in some way, right? Being a global CMO, setting up the app. Tell us, as a brand owner, what are the brand activities you continue to do and what are the brand activities you put a stop to? So, see, a lot of people ask me, hey, how is the brand changing? And I tell them a very simple answer that brand cannot change because my definition of a brand is it has to have a character and character means that it has to have some values and the test of values is that when times are tough, they're still vouched by the same values. So as far as I'm concerned, I think the value of the new brand is not changing and what we are saying, however, to people might undergo a little bit of evolution. So for example, I know very well that a lot of parents are keen to get the second PC at home now. They have two children, e-education, they want to make sure that they have two PCs. Many people who did not have PCs earlier, they're saying, okay, at least let me have one. I can't just depend on my office laptop for the weekend. So our messaging that is going to go out is, hey, how can we give you a full bundle? Which PC is the best for your family and what are the accessories that you need? Number two, in India, there's always an affordability issue. So the affordability issue is that, hey, I don't have the money up front, especially now when salaries are getting cut, people are losing jobs. But in India, education gets top priority. So we are coming out with two-year EMI. I think that people can pay, which is a big deal. So what I'm saying, you're observing the changing consumer behavior and you're responding to it, not only in terms of the product offering, but in terms of pricing, in terms of financing, in terms of making sure that you really become a true partner in the consumer's journey. True. So we also, for example, in Raj, we did something very novel. We said till the time this goes on, our service centers, which are fully operational, unlike many other companies, my AC has a problem, but my AC manufacturer for two months is off. But we are on. We think that we will support any brand, free of cost. Fantastic. That is the kind of thing they're doing. We've also launched a campaign called SmarterEd, which is a portal we've made, where in teachers, people who want to teach can register. Students who want to learn can register. SmarterEd. SmarterEd, so you can just do a Google maybe. SmarterEd. SmarterEd. So it's a platform we've created. We've just launched it last week. With thousands of people like you and me have registered, think that now I have some time and I want to teach something. Students all over the country are registering. They're saying that I may have teachers, but the teachers are not really good, which is a big problem. There's a one million shortage of teachers. So we are doing these kind of things, which I would say that was always in our agenda. And therefore I would say it's not new to the brand. But I think the situation demands that that part comes out a little more than the commercial part. Fantastic. I think that's where innovation comes in. That's where a larger purpose comes in. We support any brand, any big. And going back to your purpose of enabling people to do what they want to do using a technology brand. So after the webinar, I'll chat SmarterEd.com and if we are somewhere towards the end to show the homepage, we must now let me ask you a direct question because we're talking to a group of CMOs who are logged in or brand managers or marketing professional, advertising professionals, media professionals. Will the marketing budgets come down in the immediate near term? Tell us what will happen to marketing budgets in the short term. We did term long term. But for the most category, they will unfortunately. And by what percentage? I think that will vary. So FNCG, I'm told, you know, I have a lot of friends who are in that part of the FNCG which is selling sanitizers. One organization which sells sanitizers. You know what is the explosion in the sanitizer business? 500 X of the normal. FNCG actually may go up because people are going to be more cooking at home and spending more time at home. But most categories, I think the drop could be anywhere from 10% to 50%. Thank you Rahul for being so specific. So Rahul, if the drop is 50%, let's say, let's take the worst case scenario and 50% is left, how will your marketing mix change? How will your media mix change? What are the thoughts in your head that you can share that can help the professionals who are watching you? So I think some of the headlights are quite leading. It will definitely be a move to more digital, more performance based marketing. Also I would say more marketing which is not related to immediate business. So I think there is a bit of a dichotomy here and I am seeing it in Lenovo. For example, we are cutting down on normal TV and print. We are doing a lot more digital, just starting to do digital. More performance based, measurable marketing. On the other hand, we are also open to spending more money on giving the larger message because brands don't mean much to an average consumer. Brands mean a lot to the brand managers. Unless you are talking about iconic brands which have been there for decades and maybe centuries. Otherwise, if you go to a survey, brands' perception will never match with what the brand manager or the CEO thinks. So this is also an opportunity to come up with what we truly believe in. Like smarter at spending money. So I think there are two kinds of pathways that I see flowing at least for Lenovo. But the traditional marketing budget will definitely go down. Digital will go down. TV and print definitely I think should be very worried. I am sorry because right now people are not even getting the newspaper. No we are. I get it too. I am not overreacting just like you. But I think human behaviour is very panic kind of pro. Rahul, what I love about the conversation is you are very real. You are being very specific. You are not giving cliched answers. You are telling us as it is and I think that is the mouth of a great leader. Yes, you have to stay human centric, you have to be compassionate. But you also have to say what you have to say and do what you have to do. So I see that. I must compliment you because sometimes conversations are very goody-goody and they are not real. So I must compliment you on for being so specific and giving specific inputs. Now let me make it a little philosophical and I sent you those questions of leadership. When the lockdown started in the last week of March, I was confused. I was lost. I had feelings of guilt, wish I had much more money. So that I could take care of my employees. I was worried about the future. But I gathered myself in the first one week and I can say in the last 40 days, I have given it my best. I have worked longer, harder. I have clarity on the future. Tell us what went through Raul's mind. You lead a very large organization, a very big brand. So as a leader, as an individual, how did you prepare yourself to be able to lead in this hookah world? So I think a lot is to do with the tenure. You know, I am almost finishing 5 years in this role. I think if I were in my first or second year, I would have panicked a lot. But what I experienced was that, I think there was, I just told myself that I got to accept this. Because there is nothing that I can do. Number two is, I realized everyone in the company is looking at me, my tone, my body language, what I say about the situation. And you know, I mean, I don't believe in being artificial. I like to call a spade a spade. But I still felt positive that people might overplay the impact. And therefore I started communicating a lot. I started talking a lot and I told people that, you know, possibility is endless. But you got to look at the probability. And therefore keep looking at the facts, keep looking at what is within your fear of control. And really not too much. As I said, I didn't overanalyze. We just did the right things. We didn't get into a panic mode of cutting things. But we said sensible, cutting down expenses, great scenarios, great situation. Because the human mind sees the worst of it when it goes through uncertainty. Now when you make, if you can make your business heads, look at scenario C, which is the worst, I think it calms you down subliminally. Because then you know that, okay, things can't go worse than this. And you know, I'm prepared to an extent that I can be. So there's no playbook. I don't think I have done it very handsomely. I'm listening a lot to people. We have created more than 100 ideas in an over. 100 ideas that I'm tracking personally. I think that is new. People are feeling very energized by ability to contribute to ideas and we are implementing some of them. I think these are some of the things that you do between employee activities. And then I tell everyone, guys if you're working in a company like Lenovo, firstly, you are privileged. Number two, you're not kids. Therefore, you've got to find your own way to motivate yourself. Good. So you know, we're getting very interesting questions. And I'll start with the question. You know, the whole idea there is Shalini Shankar asking in the current scenario of reduced demand and customer being selected in the purchase. They should branch off for reaching consumers through campaigns and be on top of their mind or should brands look at pricing and become more attractive. So is pricing going to play a bigger role? That's one question from Shalini Shankar. And the other question is from Amit Setia. I would like to hear your thoughts on future proofing for the brand. Future proofing of the business from supply chain and consumption perspectives. You also had an add on question in what all aspects the brand will go for normalization, both in the short term and long term. Yeah, not there. Firstly, I don't think I'll have answers for everything. On the first one, I stayed forward. We are reaching out to, for example, the student community through schools now, which we never did earlier. We're going to be doing specific campaigns to reach out to students and give them messages as to what is the right thing to buy for them to have continuity in education. Pricing, I don't see pricing as a big lever in the current situation. And I think a brand which has a character and values will not try to take advantage of the situation if there's an opportunity. And we've seen good brands actually make statements on that. But if the demand goes down, will there be pressure on pricing? I think you have to study your industry and see what is the price elasticity. I don't think on computers, if I reduce the price by 5% people, more people are going to buy. But if we can give them financing offers that many people may come provided they have the need. Second one was about the future proofing. I don't really am a big fan of future proofing. You can't do future proofing. And Amit is the CM of a brand. I always talk about the price of perfection. The price of perfection is too high. And if you want to be prepared for a black phone even like this, the amount of investment you'll have to make may be too high. It may not be worth it. So I think if it's a regular event and people think that it can happen again, then yes you should be prepared. And I think every business will have its own playbook on what to do. One thing is just to be sensible. A lot of messages for startups who had unlimited money coming in. And I'm one of the few people who are vocal about it that every business in the medium term needs to be sensible. So I think it's a good reminder that your business model needs to be sustainable. You can't just keep sustaining on infinite money being infused because it's a game of investors trying to outdo each other. Which is what happens. So part of it is hygiene and the other part I think every organization will have to find its own answers. I can't generalize. I can just give some general principles which I think for this esteemed group may not be of any value. I want to ask you, will brands collaborate more? So for example, you talk to an educational segment and hence I'm asking this question. You could take it for other segments. Will say let's say partner with an EduTech brand. Will it partner with an education website? So will brands collaborate more than they ever did? So very good question. I would say brands should collaborate. Whether they will or not is to be seen. It's very difficult to collaborate. I've tried this personally. Brands have egos and you know, processes and companies. So two large brands, very difficult to collaborate. One large brand and one small brand easier to partner. Very easy to partner with startups because the founders can take decisions like this. There's a beauty about the way the start of this. But absolutely, I think this is a time for a lot of brand partnerships to happen. Thank you Rao. There are more questions coming. I'll take them. Say somebody called Swamiji Bhosh as an outdoor media agency employee. I'm really tensed about the future prospects of out of home. If big brands are cutting down marketing budgets, how will out of media home media survive? There is Ravi Kumar with increase in online education. What is the plan for urban and rural markets both in branding and pricing? Out of home, I mean, I don't have an answer. But I think as I said, my feeling is that people will start coming out. Bangalore by the way are not set out because I'm usually in calls. Many of my friends are going out. They think it's normal other than the IT corridor. Everyone is out. So I feel that human beings will end up being human beings. And they will do what they've been doing for centuries. They will not suddenly hold up in their houses. So OOH and my opinion will come back. Now every organization including marketing media will have to brace for a tough next six months without a doubt. And I think the test of an organization is can you survive the six months? And if you can't, I think there was an inherent problem in your business model. What is the second question? Can you tell me again? In terms of urban markets pricing. As I said, pricing, I don't think we are looking at pricing at all. Anyway, we are on a tight ship on margins. So I don't think we can reduce the prices and we definitely will not increase the prices. So I think it's more about messaging and reaching out to customers in an effective and endearing way. If you appear opportunistic, then I think you will do long term damage to your brand. So it's a very careful job for marketers right now. For companies like Lenovo because there is an opportunity for us for sure. We don't know how big but we have to come across as people who are generally trying to help. So Rohail Amin who is a senior editorial colleague. What is your advice to brand managers and brands in these times? Specific advice, one or two. I'm a little very, to be honest, I'm a little very about giving general advice. I think it's not just to brand managers but to everyone as I said that I think this whole situation has given us a lot more thinking time. Therefore, first you should calm your mind down and this is a great time to do two things. First is really push yourself to come up with some ideas and implement them. And second is to think long term. And for brand managers I would say that you watch your companies. You will know whether your brand has a character or not. Everyone will want to claim but the way you are reacting, organizations as well as the brand, it will come out whether the value system is authentic or not. And it's a good test. Write down what is my value, what is the behavior my brand should be demonstrating and then honestly ask yourself, am I demonstrating that behavior? Will e-commerce become preferred mode of sales for most brands? With physical retail become lesser and lesser important and will e-retailing become bigger and bigger? No, I would not take it to that extent. But today for example if I look at a consumer laptop market, one out of three laptops are sold online by either Flipkart or Amazon. So that 33% may go up to 40. I don't think it's going to change in the next two months. I think it may be even more 50% but as I keep saying everyone people will want to come back to their whole habit of wanting to see a laptop, compare five laptops and six hours doing comparisons. So I think the balance right now will take. So this whole thing will favor these brands but it's not going to kill the offline retail totally. Another question from Ravi Kumar. Going forward how do you see brand approach impact properties like sports or KBCs or movies? I think the person is from television. See as I said I think you have to break every all these questions into two parts. How is it going to impact in the next six months? And then how is it going to impact long term? And there could be W's. We could have more lockdowns and because nobody knows the trajectory that this disease will take. In the short term I think everything will get affected. And personally sometimes I feel that once a brand is established you don't need to spend money on just flashing the logo. So Lenovo was the first company by the way to sponsor KBC when I was handling marketing 15 years ago and we spent a lot of money because Lenovo was unknown. Today we will never do it. So I think it's all about your context. If you're a new brand you will continue to do that. If you are an established brand I think some of those film placements may actually get deep prioritized because people will say I want to spend money on what will give me immediate measurable business. Fantastic. Thank you for being so real and you know in terms of being just the content and being real it's one of the best conversations I've had. So thank you Raul and you know because sometimes as I said it's a little shy to say. I wouldn't say that to be dishonest but they just want to keep the optimistic message going and you know. So I like to ask last two questions and then maybe bring one or two audience questions. One is what is Raul Agrawal's personal leadership mantra? A personal leadership? Mantra. You know what is your leadership style? So I keep three pillars for me. One is strategic pillar, second is execution pillar, third is people pillar. And I think a good leader is somebody who has to keep an eye on all three. A leader who's excellent in all three is maybe one in a billion million. But as a leader if you can be strong on two then you are a good leader. But if you're weak on equal one pillar then you will not survive. You will not survive. You can't say that I'm such a brilliant guy and I execute so well but I'm going to ignore the people element. So first is I think this tripod balance is very important. I think second is leaders and I have learned it over the years on ROG that the tendency to add value is too much. So the lesser you speak the more value you add actually. It has been a very tough learning for me. Beautiful. The lesser you speak the more value you add. So you let basically Rahul is saying if I give you delegate more you let people take chances, make mistakes, learn, become leaders themselves. Give them an opportunity to fail and learn and hopefully become better leaders. That's right. And the third thing that I have learned lately I'm still doing it is that I think ideas will not drop like an apple. You have to push your system and your processes to come up with new ideas and allow people to actually take the risk and fail. I think that only a leader can do. That doesn't happen unless you're a Google kind of an organization with the DNA itself is innovation. So I can go on and on but these are some of the things that I maybe subconsciously or consciously try to do. Rahul, is there a book you want to recommend to people or a blog or a movie that could help them get through these times? Yeah. I think couple of books are The Art of Thinking Clearly is a good book. By Mr. Dabeli. Yeah. And he's also written a book of The Art of Living Happy or something like that. So that I think maybe is more important in these times. And Rahul, if you have to say make one prediction for the future, what would that be? Future means 6 to 12 months. I'm not thinking beyond that. You're putting in an uncomfortable zone because it is so easy to predict the future and yet so dangerous. So my feeling is that 90% of the world will come back to normalcy in the next 6 to 12 months. That's a very optimistic note and looking at your answers which are very real. I hope and pray what you say is real and I'll take the last audience question Will brands look for innovative localized media given these difficult circumstances? Rajesh Radhakrishnan from Ritthi Media. Localized innovative media. Do you mean the content or what? I mean he has not specified but I think that's a fair point to assume. I think that debate is always open, global content or local content and MNC always deals with it. So I'm a fan of a good hybrid model. I think your global brand ethos need to be preserved but you will connect more to the audience if you have a local message which is rooted in a local insight. That is always desirable COVID or no COVID. What are the positives for you as an individual of this COVID? You know, every cloud is a silver lining. For example, positive for me is that I've lost 2 kg weight. I'm not travelling, I'm eating at home, I'm mostly sleeping well. So I've done no socializing, so no drinking. So my health has improved, my focus has improved. What are your personal gains? Firstly, I thought all the MBTI tests have always told me in Iraq that I'm an extreme extoward. It almost suggested that I will go mad if I have to sit alone. I usually sit alone for most of the day, I've been absolutely fine. It's a self-discovery that I'm actually happier, calmer when I'm alone. Number 2, I realized I'm speaking 30% less. Everyone is happy about it. My team is happy, I'm doing less calls, so I think there is no end to you being more efficient. I'm sleeping more, I'm sleeping now at least 7 hours, 7-7.5. I'm working out more, at least 15 more minutes have got added. And yes, we are all eating healthy. So I think personally, I've also lost 2 kg. I never came, but I've lost because life is healthy. So I think these are some of the benefits I would say. Thank you for being real loud. I really enjoyed our conversation and hopefully in the next 30-60 days or even earlier, we can get on to another conversation when some of the things you said have actually become a reality. We wish you luck, we wish Lenovo luck, we wish our industry luck. And we look forward to engaging with you on another issue in happier, better times. Over to Chati. Thank you Anurag. I just want to tell you that I think your questions were very real. So that helped me answer them really, even on hypothetical questions. So thank you for keeping me honest there. And it was a pleasure coming here and I wish exchange for media all the best. I think the way you guys are dealing with this situation is quite admirable. And I think I wish you all the success for this Econ Clay. Thank you Rahul. You've been a big support to us and part of our big initiatives for the last 7-8 years, 10 years. And we hope to continue to engage with you on this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much Rahul. Thank you. So thank you Mr. Agarwal and Dr. Batra for such an insightful session. And we thank of course Mr. Agarwal for giving us this valuable time.