 Welcome to an exchange for media communication bridge. We have the finest, the tallest, and the most sought-after brains in the marketing advertising communication and PR domain. While they are communication leaders, we have Mr. Dilip Charyan, who is the founder of Perfect Relations, which is now a part of Densu AG's network. Dilip really doesn't need an introduction to any gathering or especially to a gathering of communication professionals. We have Ms. Roma Malwani, who has been an advisor to entrepreneurs and big businesses and brands in terms of communication. She's been a head of corporate communication in many large listed Indian and MNC firms. Currently, she's a communication advisor to the chairman of Vedanta Group and Mr. Agarwal. We have Mr. Ashwini Singla, who now runs S-Trump, but again, he's a stalwart. He's part of the founding team of Jailasur Basin Mercer Teller. In between, he worked with Reliance, advising Reliance industries for a couple of years. We have Mr. Parish Chaudhary, who is again very entrepreneurial. He's led PR agencies. He's been head of corporate communications. I first met him 15 years back when he was the head of COPPA at Grand Bank C. And now he's the head of communications at the Adani Group. Last but not the least, we have Mr. Rohit Bansal, who I admire for losing so much weight in the last three years and being disciplined about it. But he is in the strategic communication advisory team at the Reliance industries limited. And again, somebody who's well-known and Rohit worked in the media and editorial side before he jumped on to the PR and COPCOM side. So he understands content really well. The contours of today's discussions are to look at how the PR industry is dealing with the new communication challenges, the opportunities. And last but not the least, my partner and friend and my co-founder of Exchange for Media, Mr. Nawal Ahuja is also with us. And Nawal and me will do this together. So we will broadly focus on how all of us are dealing with a new normal. Where is the PR domain headed? Are there changes in the way we all are working with our clients? What are those changes? What are the positives, negatives? What is the revenue impact? So have the PR projects shrunk temporarily? Where is the money going? How has the communication bridge changed and your predictions for the future? So Dilip, I'll start with you. Dilip, what do you have to say about the current situation and the new normal in communication? Thank you, Anurag. And it's a pleasure to be here with Roma, Ashwini, Paresh, Rohit and Nawal. Thank you very much. I hope that what we discussed has value for those in the communications business. So I'll go straight away without any preamble. There's going to be to start with a shrinking of business. What is my estimate of the shrinking of business? I would be surprised if it is anywhere less than 30%. I would say that the business will shrink by about 30% right now. And it really depends on everybody's skill, how they're going to rebuild from there. So if one looks at the full year, I would probably guess that there's going to be an impact in the region of 20% for the whole year. So 30% is what's going to happen between the last month, this month and the next month. And I think when it spreads out, it'll probably even out to about 20% if you're smart. What's going to change in the communications business? I think lots has changed and lots more will change. You will find and I'm going to be slightly counterintuitive here. I think that this long lockdown has shown a lot of people, a lot of consumers, viewers, readers, etc. that a lot of what happens in the digital space is no longer credible. So you will find that contrary to current opinion and current thinking that the big brand traditional brands in media are likely to take time, but they will recover because I think consumers have had the luxury of being confined to seeing the kind of inaccurate and fake stuff that floods a lot of digital spaces. WhatsApp University has probably been discredited sufficiently, but I think that the final nail in the coffin happened when WhatsApp itself decided that messages which are going viral need to be controlled and you're not allowed to spread them except if you go through the painstaking process of going one by one. So I think that it pretty much is now obvious to discerning customers that media will change. Who's going to benefit? What numbers will be? We don't know. In the meantime, they are in pain because as all of us know, media houses have been much faster and more public in their cutting off salaries and their curtailing of numbers. I think that this is probably just an indication of what's going to happen to every single segment of our business. So I don't think that there's going to be any part which is going to be spared the pain of what's going to change. And it's not only because of the slowing of growth. I think that it's also because the business itself is changing. After opening up, I believe that companies and corporations and individuals will recognize that you need to go for branded products. Branded by that, I mean companies will have to spend a lot more time communicating directly from their CEOs, from their if the handles have any respectability, but it will be necessary and it will become incumbent on leadership to be out there spreading and communicating credibly. So this is one of the changes that we have noticed at Perfect Relations that a lot of media are looking for stories, but they're not willing unless you're happy to come on record. So I think that media has recognized that there is a lot of Flotsam and Jetsam about. The other thing that's changed is that communication has become, shall I say, more crisp. There is no doubt that the old pedantic style of communication and content which was made for one kind of medium, will no longer work. So these are my remarks and I'll stop here unless you want me to continue for a minute more. So I think these are excellent opening remarks and we'll come back to you, but you said four things. One is that in the short term and the medium term, 30% loss of business, 20% over the next 11-12 months, credible media brands will be more in demand. They may have short term pain, but in the medium long term, they'll be even more stronger and transform themselves and clients and sources are being asked to be on record so that the credibility is maintained. These are my takeaways. Thank you. Mr. Bansal, Rohit, if you're there, we'd like to work with a very India's largest business enterprise. Which has been in news in the last one week to work with India's biggest media owner and that ecosystem. You've been a veteran. Give us your opening comments. Rohit hasn't joined yet, so I think we can... So Rohit hasn't joined. We'll go to Parish. Parish, pretty much you've been on the PR agency side. First of all, are there any positives from the current for the PR professional for communication? Are there any positives or only negatives? No, I think I'm a born optimistic guy and I can tell you that all the school are blue off the virus and people leaving jobs and etc. And then the economy shrinking. I can tell you all this is a blip that will turn around very, very quickly because this to me, I think is the 1991 magic movement that our earlier Prime Minister had. It is going to be on that absolutely tipping point of a new opportunity. Now I think all of us are on the same level playing field. Let's understand. It is not the economic breakdown. There is no, you know, embarrassment that has happened. It is a pandemic that has attacked everybody. So everyone automatically, agencies, clients, businesses, governments, everybody come on the same platform in the same side. I think two, three things will happen from here. And I think our Prime Minister is doing a great job. Some of the countries have shown the way out. Two things will happen. One, I think the focus now on ESG, the focus on climate change, the focus on doing the things right by companies and therefore governments and therefore the world is going to be in the limelight. I think all of us in our previous jobs, whether I was with Mukesh Ambani earlier or with Unilever, have always spoken about sustainability. Today, the law of companies who have not taken sustainability very seriously, it's a part of the little box that they tick mark. I think all the companies will now rally behind sustainability and also governance to a large extent. So Mother Earth will take priority than anything else. Very few companies have succeeded in doing that. So this will provide opportunity to the corporate communicator and to the agencies. Therefore, to actually go after business and people and advise them, they have to be more advisory than running after coverages and column centimeter and typically what I think Dilip was saying that off the record comments, etc. I think all this will be realigned now to say how can we become socially more responsible? How do we take environment, social and governance to the next level? So this will become, I think, a must do then say, okay, we can also do this in the end of five or seven years. So that journey will begin very soon. And this is a great opportunity for me. On the new side, I think fake news, I think Dilip has elanted a lot on that. I can tell you that there is opportunity for a lot of these senior editors and journalists who are now going on starting their own apps and their entire new media channels. Now they will become influencers. They will be declined of print in the next 15, 20 years, at least from the urban-urban rural side. Rural will keep growing because of the education, etc. So print will not die in India for the next 40 years. But I can tell you, print will decline. And therefore, what are the new influencers this new normal will create? And I can give you some examples of, just kind of wrote it down. Vikram Chandra's editor G, Varkadar's Mohanjo, Gangadhar Patil's 101 reporters, Nilesh Mishra's Goan, of course, he's still with India today, sort of the ladies in the Lallanta app, and all Ken, the morning context. All these are now becoming credible contacts. They're also been sponsored by some companies. They're all sponsored by governments. Influencer and influencer horizon will change dramatically. No longer is the big media houses going to be the ones that people seek to influence their customers and their consumers. And I think this is going to be a big one. On the third bucket is, however, where the GDP is going and therefore what's going to happen to people and jobs. I think this year looks like a washout for a lot of people. We will look at about a 1.5% GDP growth. But I think in the next three years, we'll come back to 775% So this is the time to invest with people. This is the time to invest with training. This is the time to invest multi-cultural and multi-tasking abilities within your... I'm a Coppercom person for many years, six or five years with the agency, but providing training and providing that leverage and doing multi-dimensional roles to your people and not being set to specific is going to the new normal and without that, you won't survive. Thank you, Parish for your opening comments. One specific question at this stage itself. What are your PR agencies telling you? Your communication partners, you know, you have a large communication team. So have you slashed their fees? So there has been across all companies, there has been some effort on cost restructuring, as I said. We've not gone blanket on cutting everybody, but there's been some restructuring. For example, trouble. I was talking to the chairman the other day and I said, why, you know, this kind of incessant troubles that we does internationally and in India, we can easily bring it down to 30%. All our offices, all our homes are technology based. So technology innovation is going to be absolutely now something that we will do. So yes, there has been some cost reduction, very, very minor, but that's gone very temporary for three to five months. Okay, Parish. Key takeaways. Sustainability will be the new focus and not just a tick mark. Governance needs to improve. Editors will emerge as influencers. And more importantly, you just said that yes, there has been a fee reduction of agencies, but it's a three to five month temporary cut. And hopefully things will be better. Thank you, Parish. Roma, again, you had really big jobs and big brands and big businesses with ANTA as a large business. Tell us your opening comments. Thank you, Anurag. I think what I've been hearing, Gillip and Parish, both allude to, yes, there's a distress in the media community, both in terms of all the communication channels which are being used right now. They're all under distress, whether it's print, digital, whether it's OTT, all of them are getting distressed. Having said that, there's an opportunity also over here. There's a resurgence of communication. I think when I say resurgence, there's a reset button that we have pushed now. Post pandemic, post lockdown 2.0. Now we have to look at India 2.0. I think there's an opportunity here for all communicators, both agencies and the in-house communicators to take this opportunity and play it out. I think the playbook of communications is going to take a drastic change, but the playbook will now become more meaningful. I think this playbook that we're going to now rewrite is going to have different parameters, different tenets, but all the same, as I feel, I'm equally optimistic that communicators' roles will be much more challenging, but they'll be much more meaningful. So I don't see things completely destroyed, but I see that there is now a different way to do business. The way business continuity will happen, communicators will have to rise up to that challenge. The media universe will have to see this new normal and make sure that they can calibrate. If they calibrate it properly, I don't see that to be an issue. If you see today's business standard, India Inc. has spoken. India Inc. tells us that they are looking at the government to support to a point, but they're all very optimistic that they're going to start looking at new ways of going back to business. So I think everybody has now taken an optimistic note. That whole doomsday prediction on COVID-19 is kind of flattening out, and people are getting used to the fact that they have to live a different life. I think once we understand that, communicators can really do a really good job to really make sure that India today can really be the new humane China. Thank you for bringing that positivity and saying there will be a new communication playbook, and hopefully that playbook will have new rules, it will have new chapters, it will have new ideas, and hopefully it will be better. But you're a client, I want to ask you, have you cut your agency's budgets? Is that something that your peers have done, if yes, by how much, and for how long do you see that cut being done? So I'll talk what I hear from my peers, it's from 10% to 35%, depending on the size of the agency, depending on the volume of work that they've been doing. But I have taken a pause right now for Vedanta. I will evaluate it this month. I have not had a conversation with my agency on this topic. I have not even had a conversation with certain of the media buys that we were looking at to change the dynamics there. I haven't done that. I think for the next two months, I'm going to wait and watch. I've not made any changes. The only change that I've done is to kind of rebuild and take this opportunity to use a different digital strategy, and that digital strategy will hold us in good stead. We started Deshki Zarotho and we are at that tipping point, and today I can use that Deshki Zarotho tagline very effectively. So for me, it's possibly an opportunity, which is why I'm not going to take a knee-jerk decision on any of my agencies who have served me very well. Thank you, Roma. Ashmini, last because you requested specifically, Ashmini, again, you worked with all size, shapes of clients and you know, born beyond just PR and communications, you've been like a business advisor in a lot of cases. Tell us your opening moments. So thank you, Anurad and Abul. It's always a privilege to join an illustrious group of people like Roma Paresh, Rohit and Dilip, people I have admired and held in great esteem. I'll try to take a little bit of a little tack differently from here. We'll pick some learning from a recent study of Astrum that we did talk about close to 70 CXOs about what their view of the world was and how they were looking at it as a new sort of thing. So let me sort of start with a quotation from Lenin in 1919, and I will tell you why this is important. This is there are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks in which decades happen. And I think this paraphrases the challenge that COVID has provided in a few weeks. It has wiped off decades and decades of progress, both on lives and livelihoods. And it has great implications in many ways, not only from communication, business, but otherwise. And I don't see us going into a new normal, but I see us going into a new abnormal. Because when you think about the volatility, the uncertainty, the ambiguity these events will create, I think we will have to learn to live in the new abnormal rather than the new normal. I think that's, I think, point number one. And what's the new abnormal going to look like? Number one, when we are going to go from offline to online, in terms of how we receive things, how we buy things, it has great implications for the traditional retail model. And if Rohit was there, I would say that the Karyana going online, via Facebook or via Geo, is the way future will happen. So the reemergence of neighborhood stores and the neighborhood businesses has a great bearing on the larger e-commerce business. So that's, I think, number one. Number two, our over dependence on China as a global supply chain market is going to move towards what I call localization and distribution of the supply chains by what we call Prime Minister is creating greater self-reliance. And this will have implications for companies like pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare, and there lies the opportunity for growth and investment in this moment. And Karyana talked about the moment of reforms. So here's the defining moment for us to be able to re-catalyze. Third, because of the risks that we face, are we going from human to automation? And clearly that has another set of implications as to how future of manufacturing will look and therefore what is going to happen. We always talk about one degree of separation in this country and we are what I call a socializing economy. We will now have to move and re-look at how we become a social distancing economy. That has its own implications for the way we communicate, engage, make, entertain, and consume communication. So that's a different implication. And the last in terms of the paradigm shift I see from cash is king to digital payments being the gold standard of how we transact. I'm saying these have implications in terms of what the companies will need to do and the one big lesson out of that is that in all of this, companies will be judged by what they are doing in this point of time. As they say, companies will be judged by how they behave during this war, how they treated their customers, how they treated their employees, how they treated their suppliers and reputation will become a great differentiator about how companies will create trust in the future. The difference between those who shared versus those who hold it to societies who will start to look at and do my concerns about social care and health. We'll start to look a little bit more towards companies as providers. So social contracts between stakeholders and companies will change. Therefore, I believe while there will be new opportunities, there will also be new rules that we will have to look as communicators. Number one, what will be the trust in institutions? Will direct communication from companies become far more important than third parties? So trust and therefore the important point that Parish and Roma made and Dilip made about what leaders will have to play. They'll have to be champions and cheerleaders of creating trust and credibility in institutions. Roma talked about purpose. Purposeful companies will need to be doing more about purpose than communicating purpose because people will start punishing companies which talk greater about purpose but do little to support that. So we need to be very careful about how we then steer companies through that maze of communication where purpose becomes central but how do we make sure it's credible, it's believable and builds long term trust. Just in time to just in case, my survey showed that 80% of C-suite executives were unprepared with the crisis playbook. So just in case means what? What happens if it goes wrong? Do we have a crisis comms playbook? Do we know how we're going to be responding as organizations or just use our instincts as most of the time? Last two points, employees become central to everything that we do. Employee engagement will become central because those are going to be our best ambassadors and that creates business continuity. So how do we make sure as employees grow and more telecommuters, how do we make sure they remain engaged? How do we make sure they remain connected with the organization? Communication challenge, again. And of course, Parish talked about it. So I won't worry about, talk about environment sustainability, our impact and our footprint will become important and the last but not the least, safety. Safety will now have the extra premium about what companies will do to create a safe work environment and a safe practices environment. And this changes the nature and the dynamics of the services that companies will be called upon. You now answer specifically about what my clients are responding to. Since I operate in a certain area of niche, I don't have the day-to-day challenges of media trends or media projects so therefore the impact is more around crisis, crisis communication, engagement, those levels of services. Those are mission critical services so what we do continues to remain but how we will be impacted as a business is new revenues going to get delayed for some period of time. So I agree with Dilip that overall we will have a certainly a negative impact over last year in terms of prop lines and how we then become more managed, how do we manage our cost and delivery will become critical to staying afloat and maintaining profitability. So that's my... Thank you, Ashmi. I think Naval wants to ask some questions. Naval, all yours? I have a very simple elementary question. Post-COVID, will corporate communications PR be valued more than it currently is and how? You want me to go first? Yeah, sure. Look, I have always maintained that when times are good, public relations good. When times are bad, public relations even better. For many ways because A, because of the credibility it provides to because of the endorsement it generates and of course the off repeated value creation of the cost versus return on investment that people can generate out of good public relations and I only mean the narrow definition of public relations to be media articles. I see the centrality of reputation and therefore the centrality of public relations is going to be more and more profitable in the post-COVID world than any time before. So the question Naval is asking let me build on that. He's asking will marketing budgets move into PR and COPCOM or will some part of marketing budgets compensate? It will compensate for some budgets being taken away from PR. I'll take that. Two questions which also can be mutually inclusive. I've always said this that the only facet in management large companies, start-ups, mid-sized companies brand custodianship which is what we can call it corporate communications agent support will always and has always remained the most most dynamic, the most loved function to a large extent when crisis come then obviously then you have to have a goose which you have to chase but this is the only function that can touch people's lives. There's only function that can change people's perception therefore your brand value whether you come to work or you don't come to work as simple as that 24 by 7 7 days a week and I think all of us in the panel and people are watching it and done that. So irreplaceable. Today with this new abnormal that we have been talking about not the normal more than today we are saying during COVID I'm not even saying post COVID during COVID I think all of us are more busier at home working minus the madness, higher productivity our positioning of growth with goodness at the share of voice, the tonality the engagement rate has gone up substantially significantly up than what I had in the last eight months. So for example in the last four weeks I've reached 190 million people has come back to 180 in the last six, eight months on all my campaigns second phase of the question which I think is a very interesting question you know I've got many years with leavers right so if you have 100 rupees your A&P ratio say 100 rupees your budget so 15 years ago 80 or 85 rupees was a print advertising tradition appear right and the rest was gone a little bit of a BTL and some was digital and social obviously social has grown etc which became 30 2% but these classic companies like PNG and leavers which know the business best with consumers have stayed with traditional media. The last two or three year trend and I have since I've worked with Sam Balsara we have this match a picture of Madison report that I think you always attend and I'm sure Dilip has been witness to yeah we collaborate three years we're collaborating correct so you seen that the entire budget has shrunk the traditional media has shrunk percent some chunk has gone to digital and a good chunk has gone to to media associations influence the management etc through earn media. I always believe 90% of my share of voice or brand value creation should be through earn media and not through paid media some of the events that you need to do which is a must because you're also into business but share the entire money that I'm getting in today with Adani and earlier with reliance some money has moved in for marketing into earn media space not now for the last 10 years at least I've been in large companies so that's moving and I can tell you Anurag going forward it has to move if it is not moving the communication head is not doing a great job. Roma your point of view and then we can deliver it I think there is a balance which is happening I wouldn't completely discount the channels which are being used right now what I see is there is an opportunity that people are leveraging let's say for the electronic channel if the kind of media spends have gone high over there and they've changed the rules of the game because they want to use this opportunity during the Covid-19 lockdown so I think these will keep changing in the future because the future today is uncertain the business itself is uncertain so it will never be able to predict and I'm seeing that all the communication channels the cost dynamics are going to fluctuate they're going to fluctuate only depending on the environment the economic situations that we'll all be facing and what the nation is going to really give us the cue I think the government plays also a big role in this how do we perceive the way the government spends are and how the private sector is going to really demonstrate so I think all these are going to be dynamic issues there won't be one right answer Dilip your take on this Mr. Serian yeah my take on it is that if we don't recognize that corporations big and small are going to go through a painful period we are faking it and that's dangerous second thing is that I'm slightly maybe contrarian here I think that good behavior on the part of corporates will be taken as expected as basic three I think that the level of unpreparedness for this and nobody was prepared for it is visible by the fact that when perfect relations put together a 24 by 7 war room in the first 20 days we had 12 clients for strategic advice for inputs for suggestions for reaching out to specific people so I think that you recognize that companies were looking for what do I do now in the now in the covid period so there was one CEO who I will have to keep anonymous who said I'm going to communicate I'm happy to be out there and speak to media but everything that I say has to sell more of my product I'm not interested in anything else you may want me to do brand building and sustenance and be nice to employees I'm not interested in any of that not to my distributors, not to my dealers I want to make sure that you give me the opportunities where I have the content the capability and the reach to make sure that I'm out of this selling more product he's a visionary because he's a big investor in three sectors agriculture equipment, automobiles and Ayurveda so he knows what he's talking about and he said look I am very clear that if you want to use me you can use whatever budgets you have you can do whatever you want to do but unless these three are met I'm not interested in corporate communications for all I care I can shrink it but I want these three achievable and every other person who entered the war room at that point of time had similar things when they were inside that room obviously I don't know what they say outside and you know many of them have sat in on meetings with ministers prime minister etc etc so there's a certain amount of saying what is appropriate to be said and what needs to be said in public but inside the room they tell you the naked truth and that's the naked truth they're all scared and they want to sell product as soon as this lives there are lots of questions I want to ask one question and I'll leave all the questions to Nawal you know there are young PR agency owners there I can see Udit Patak I can see Vinit Handa and they've asked me various questions that's why I'm looking at the screen see what should you know still a very large agency of course Paresh and Roma are clients these days you're in more the advisory space what should small and medium size agencies do what is your advice to them as seniors in this business as leaders and you know this time has shown that you know if we all survive the industry survives industry survives we survive so we are actually to tell us what is your advice to these young relatively younger entrepreneurs professionals on how to survive what to do how to deal with the cost of revenue how to deal with uncertainty tell them a little bit about that that's a difficult one you've put me on a spot but I would say that at this point in time focus only on two things cut costs ruthlessly I don't know how you do it ruthlessly and secondly give freely which means clients want you to do something extra just do it this is not the time to stand and argue about you know per interaction add on you know there's an initial cost for this creative content is going to cost you this I think that people have to recognize that this is a time when all anybody any client needs is an excuse to say hey you're not standing with me so you've got to cut costs to make sure that what you're able to offer and the third thing as a result of this is recognize that there's no Sunday there's no off day and I'm really not concerned if your kid has to finish his homework and needs your computer I'm not interested so you've got to recognize that that's that your reality and it's going to be the reality for a little while imagine the situation after world war 2 so that's what I'm trying to communicate at this point of time it's not very palatable but that's the bald truth thank you for being real throughout the conversation you've been specific and real and I really congratulate you and thank you Roma, Ashmi, Paresh what are your advice two clients and somebody who's really a veteran and has made a niche for himself in going beyond here so your advice you're not barring some of these business like Ola, Uber, PVRs airports airlines, aviation when there is nothing the service industry has got something going I think somebody did make a mention it was also Roma and also Ashmi that this is the testing time the real value of your worth how small a big Anurag you are this is the testing time of your character this is your character test two days ago I was talking to a bunch of very senior CEOs we were in the path to the HUL a group and as you know Sanjeev Mehta he stays here and all the past he was there people who moved on to jobs and who've taken CEOs positions I was always asking this question now you know what running business for 20, 30, 40 years 15 years, 50 years and a little blip of two or three or four months is your character are you telling me that everything going to be shut because there is no customer there is no consumer because there is no economic movement there is nothing for three months and I'm not specifically targeting smaller agencies and I understand the pain of smaller agencies okay they might have six clients eight clients, ten clients some of them with them for four or five years that's how they kind of grow from there yes you have to cut cost but this is the time do not take out your people do not take out your people you cut your salaries whatever you want to cut your cost work out of home saying okay in future get out of home but but quickly client connections and client servicing will be seven days a week in any case focus on ESG sorry some technical glitch sorry this is the time and you can give yourself two months, three months, five months the lockdown started towards the end of March and I can tell you because I know a lot of PRNC heads some of the clients who were quick on the draw said we will take a break say from April 14th or 17th or 18th when they realized that this is on April 14th when the lockdown got extended that's when they said oh my god three more weeks, five more weeks right 15th April let's be very real that's when some of the clients said you know I'm taking a break reduction of fees etc yeah yeah no so you just actually what you just 12 days into the turmoil you know it's not that six months you've clearly shut down there's nothing to eat in the house this is the time of test of character and I think you've got character you've I've not taken out a single of my consultant not a single agency nobody and in fact my in fact I also told them that you know it's a six months period but trust me three months four months five months review and I'm going to get back and I will get back to the normal days so this is the time to test your character nothing else let me pick that back again for my young for my young and upcoming public relations firms which are mid-sized to small look loss of revenue is a reality new assignments will be hard to come by they are and maybe there's a reduction in the fee or a pause there are two or three things in the agency world there are only two major costs that that are that that bother any any entrepreneur one is the stop cost and the other is the overhead fixed overhead cost so you've got to start thinking about two elements what do I need to do immediately to think about my my cash burn and how do I what can I can I consolidate reduce relinquish which will allow me to reduce my cash because nobody has that kind of reserve or the kind of financial resilience sitting there to say look I'm going to be looking for a few lakhs per month of cash burn over the period of next five or six months I mean we can keep up in this cost and say well there'll be a two-month pause or three-month pause but I certainly do feel that it's going to have a longer-term implications on liquidity and cash so the first and foremost immediate concern has to be what do I do to reduce my cash burn and you do what needs to be done to reduce your cash burn this also gives me an interesting point to say okay while I'm reducing my cash burn does this provide me an opportunity to pivot my business absolutely so how can I transform my own business correct using more technology for example right I have I'm a big proponent of what I called asset-like strategy you want to start thinking of how you want to become more nimble and asset-like and reduce your fixed overhead to the barest minimum I don't have an office we have one single location where we use telecommuting most time everything's on the cloud for the last five years so asset-like strategy allows you the ability to be able to shrink your cost without trying to sort of hurt people so that's not right the second important part is to then say okay out of my client portfolio what do I need to do what kind of services do my client portfolios require which can create me additional revenue or new revenue or supplementary revenue to what I'm doing it is also about thinking about the fact that look is this an opportunity for us to start looking at multitasking multi-skilling our people so that we don't really need to expand our portfolio of people without thinking about the expansion of client portfolio so multi-skilling multi-tasking to maybe to consolidate both revenue as well as cost is going to be the immediate priority then in the medium term short term or long term you can start thinking about pivot, new services there are questions lots of questions from Sana Khan, from Uday from Vinit around on media but I want to ask my last question to Dilip and to each one of you and then I will take a leave and Nawal will take over fully business world 7 hour to do Roma your three or two predictions for the future I think in terms of the communications landscape the agencies who are going to be really worth its while are the ones who have been loyal partners they will continue to be loyal partners and that's when that's a test of time for them and for us as clients the medium size and new start-ups who are there in the business right now do have a challenge to prove themselves differently and if they can really show a differentiator they probably will start surviving who are doing that and as of now during the COVID-19 period there are some of them on the chat right now who might be having a conversation that how can we do this differently in our regions, how can we do this differently in our sector, who do you like to partner us, so it's not that we don't look at it differently I think we are people who look at long term in fact I will just give one small incident which really touched my heart that even as an organization when this broke we were one of the first ones who put up a special fund and we didn't put up the special fund for ourselves or anybody else we said for the daily wage worker who's now without any money without any food to eat so I think these are things which really give you the brand value and I see partners who share that brand attribute with us, they are the ones who survive with their class Thank you Roma, Dilip, my last question to you, you are two or three predictions for future, you know short, specific like you have been Dilip I think he's locked out I would say no, no I'm not I would say that the three predictions are that there will be a massive change in the focus of companies as I said to ensure survival, what that means for companies I don't know I would like to be as optimistic as Parish is I'm not I have pulled about 120 of our clients and I know that a lot of them are are under stating their anxiety and willing to state that they're under stating it and being positive that's why the second thing I think is that you will see a lot of movement towards replacement of human resources with, I know you warned us at the beginning not to talk too much about AI but I think between AI and a lot of automation you will see some functions within the agency business getting in some senses they will change in the way they are being used by the fewer people who will be there and the third thing I see is that work from home is going to be is going to be a very large part of more organizations and I think TCS has initiated writing on wall by saying that look 50% of our people I can tell you that in our company we now have a list of 60% of people who will actually continue to function out of home for the next 3 months after opening up so we're not saying that they'll never come back to office but we have prepared that list so that if you want to we can go to the extent of 60% and it's not by rotation rotation will be there addition to that so I see work from home changing the landscape for a while will we all go back to hugging, kissing and hanging around together at the Oberoi I hope so but it's not going to be as soon as we think thank you Dilip for being you know bringing this Humber cautious note it's good to be an optimist I'll see you guys another time now why don't you take over and then once I've listened to the question I'll go away so you know I have another question to the panellists maybe we can start with Dilip a lot of questions are coming in so maybe I'll combine some of those Vinith Handa has posted a question let me ask that first his question is post-COVID and even now the way marketing budgets have been chopped and they build pressure and earn media news will get even more commoditized and is that going to become a larger source of revenue for media houses and what is going to be the implication of that because what we've seen in the last few years in terms of some parts of news media getting commoditized and how corporate communication and PR has used it is that trend going to accelerate and if yes then what is the implication of that my reading is that it's going to be the contrary the smart viewer the smart reader and the smart consumer is going to see through media which is bought and I think that though there will be a push from media houses to go in this direction companies or agencies who fall for this and as a large agency we have opportunities either way so it doesn't matter to us we make something on the swings and little bit on the roundabouts so I would say that credible media will actually be the route to go and you will see that I think Roma mentioned it somewhere that you will look at media and agencies as to them being partners with you in the dissemination of truth not in the dissemination of your personalized rubbish so I think that there is actually a bigger opportunity for agencies because companies have a certain silo in which they think content and that's why agencies come in and play a role to make that content more acceptable to the real world I think now on the the domination of the so called big daddies of the media houses that's going to be history very soon because they also indulge in a lot of these paid staff etc so that's going to come down and I think Dilip was bang on I can see youngsters who pass out of college XIC who join us as trainees who can see a campaign which is advertonially based or laced or it is true credible news so I think credible news platform will continue to remain as the primary source information a lot of journalists are breaking out and doing their own little gig not to be more credible than being nonpartisan or partisan to that extent so that they will become influencers I think going forward if you are going to be a very science based follower and not ideology based I think that's where it's going to go lastly I think media is going to fight tooth and nail and you seen Benidjan's tweet three days ago on taking their fair shares of slice from Google and Facebook I think it's high time that the social media start sharing money and revenues with the media organizations because ultimately they take the aggregators of news so it's important to do that yeah look let me talk about I believe it's horses for horses because while we keep talking about the death of the traditional and the emergence of the new we also have to look at the addressable audiences that we have in the course of who we want to talk when we think about the demographic composition of this nation while there is the generation Z generation G and the millenials we also have a very large component of the generation X and the generation Y so when we start to think about how media consumption is it needs to be horses for horses and depending on who you want to do there will be a use of traditional media there will be use of new media so therefore I don't believe that there's a one size or one shoe fits all strategy we have different format different shoe sizes therefore we'll have to choose what is the best in the situation so my mind I am a more proponent of what I say holistic I like what Parish and Roma said at the end of the day if you have good content and you have credible and authentic content how it needs to be broadcasted and consumed depends on who you want to broadcast it and who your consumer is going to be there are still people who would like to pick up their paper and read their paper so there is a value for that but there are people like my son who has never seen a news paper yeah I think those days have gone where you said this is an alpha or 4 like at times of when it is read by 4 or 5 people there's so much rubbish which is like I can demolish 15 years ago that's the point also I think one more point here is that how to be you know the levels of engagement rate right so you might have a massive circulation so called on paper great readership but there are there are smaller media houses credible ones lower on circulation but very high engagement rates that's really is the that's the formula for the world is going to go beyond BRCs and all these rubbish you know measurement techniques that we do is going to be an aggregator of use and the engagement that they have so I think that's how it's going to blend up I have one other you know elementary question we all know that there are a large service industry which are significantly impacted because of covid and the impact unfortunately for some of those industries is going to last beyond you know the lockdown period so you have hotels you have airlines the travel tourism industry since you know I'm told there are you know more than 200 people online already and many of them run PR agencies they manage large accounts beyond the obvious ones the industries that are directly impacted where the impact is going to last which are the ones which in your judgment you think are also going to be as badly impacted or as close to be impacted as the you know the the travel tourism industry which industries do you see getting similarly impacted where the impact will last you know beyond the lockdown well into the next quarter you want me to I think do you want me to take that Roma sure Ashwin go ahead let's divide this into three rings right what we call the need industries basic need for food health basic form of travel clothing all of those will remain so therefore those what I call need based industries will continue to thrive and survive in much longer and then we what we call dictionary or wants industry and then we have what we call the desire industries for example travel international travel long jet travel cruise travel may become a challenge but road travel which is domestic will become so as I said the new abnormal will create new opportunities with new rules be able to look into the future and say who's going to get impacted no I think it's too premature for us to be able to create a landscape at this point of time but as we start to see what I call the social distancing economy new opportunities will emerge where you may be able to create issues so one very clearly I think now well you know the the ones on the the discussion we spend in the glamour and the night lounges and you know all of that is going to take a while to come back you've seen the stocks of the FMCG companies and pharma companies and you know all of them are on lifetime highs so I was talking to a very senior economist three four day five years ago and he was saying all this stuff about covid and actually we are on the journey for the last two or three two or three weeks yeah for some of the traders on the road one shop who's setting a paint for example right somebody who's got a who's a daily wages guy obviously for them life is crazy what he says that once it opens up right people are it's going to be life as normal it won't be like on a Monday morning but it'll be quicker than what we would think much quicker there would be all these thoughts about cost conservations etc etc but the way our GDP is going to grow but remember a lot of companies are going to be coming to India or to South East Asia from China don't forget that at the background the entire Prime Minister's missionary is working towards opening up the economy FDI into India to make sure that all these people who are going to leave China and there could be not 100% there could be 30 40% which is huge could be a four five trillion dollar kind of move all those guys we need to make sure that we get a substantial chunk of that business now if that comes in you can imagine what the multiplier of these businesses to our Indian manufacturers service industry is going to be so we're not looking at that we're looking at okay this is my business straight jacketed business I am right now I said 200 crores I was supposed to move at 250 maybe I won't grow next next year but you might grow to 300 crores who knows so all this stuff is going to happen some might take one year two years three years but don't forget the medium and the long term goes here so it's not going to be all disaster but we just need to hold out and have some patience and it will come back it's going to be a new economy it's going to be a layered economy and I think what's going to really play out are new players let's look at the pharmaceutical business let's look at the wellness business now how's that going to pan out let's look at mental health let's look at these new things which are going to emerge because there's going to be a new need post Covid, post pandemic these are the new things which will always come and it's happened it's not that it's I'm telling something which is there's been a pandemic in the 1800s and this is a repeat of that all this is really showing the same signs and I think we should be ready for a layered economy and once a layered economy starts getting to settle down things will start falling back into place and that's when the new normal will set it so I have a lot of online questions let me pick up one from Udit Patak he has a online question which is what are the learnings from consumer behavior that's going to be completely that's going to completely change because of Covid and what are the implications from that for the corporate communication industry you're saying the change of consumer behavior that's right so I think your first question before that kind of had an answer to that too because consumer is going to be in various buckets right but the ones which who are aspirational and in India is a very large aspirational story right youngsters etc the layoff will not be a very large lead time I see that consumer behavior and aspirations coming back very quickly when I say very quickly I'm talking about 6 to 7 months time we'll find the economy back on the road you know we're talking about W and all that and the V recovery my estimate says W till November and December almost it'll be a V straight straight on so consumer behavior in any case by all the marketing is present in the audience and outside there's nothing there's customer and consumer loyalty in any case customer loyalty lasts for 5 minutes or 10 minutes but citizen communication is the longer one so I'm focusing on citizen communication and customer communication well I think broadly the defining spread of something like this and the life and likelihood challenge that this event has brought into our consciousness will create two or three shifts in the way we put the lens and see the world one preservation and wellness is going to become a very important consideration not only for yourself but your families and friends that will change the lens through how we make choices and evaluate companies or evaluate products I think that's a very important consideration about the fact that wellness and preservation is going to be critical and therefore the whole idea around and Roma has talked about the importance of mental health and others second when we think about telecommuting work from home, shelter at home whatever the words may be how do we deal with the fortress that the home will become and how we sort of then make that home office playground and everything else in time to come has its own sets of choices that we will make in the way we buy, engage with people, buy products and communicate and actually consume content therefore will phone become an essential service, will 5G networks will actually become essential services even for governments to legislate that itself will create its own sets of choices and the way world will be seen so I'm not a person with a crystal ball who can look ahead but I'm saying if you start seeing the lens and changing the lens that this event has created you will try to get some kind of early signs of how consumers are going to evaluate and the prism through which they will see life transportation for example right socializing for example, live events live concerts will that become how people will look at entertainment so what do you think about large sports gathering so some lenses you will have to see but if you look at the lens of preservation and wellness as one big lens you will see various dimensions reflected in it that's right so last question before we I think we are out of time already there is a question from a young PR professional and I called on WhatsApp one of my team members this question is from a lady called Anshil Makkar her question is that how do you guide the youngsters what change would come in the PR industry and what steps should we take to practice PR for you know our future career first let me allow Roma and Pradesh because they are looking at it from the client side so their expectations is a far more important input into this I think the millennials see themselves very different and they are very adaptable to change and they can really come out with out of the box ideas so I think they are in a good spot I think they need to understand that yes there is a new normal they will not probably get the opportunities that they would have otherwise had in a normal landscape but there is an opportunity for the bright ones the talent will always come forward and young PR professionals are the order of the day I don't see them really receiving in their potential I think this is an opportunity for them to really prove themselves they are the ones who are going to be the bright spots in my opinion what's the name Manaval the young lady's name Aachal Bakhar Aachal okay hi Aachal I did a 5 year stint with a small agency called Madison and amongst all my stints in my last 30 years I found the agency stint as the best because I got to work with youngsters like you you know the amount of things that I have learned from you guys I don't think I have learned from any of the top companies that I have worked with with the leavers or run backs here that was a different kind of learning but I think the two things that you bring to the table is a very unbiased mind you have no baggage I think all of us in the panel have carried so much baggage in our lives because we have done so many stuff and so many situations so there is always but you guys come with a clean slate right third you are so aspirational to grow to grow quickly and to become a good professional and not to because in this like I said earlier communications impact you know perceptions and reputation and the brand value so whatever you do right or wrong actually is the death or the life of an organization in many ways than one so to build that whole credible story two three things one is you have to get away from the standard PR practices and say okay how much more can I do for the client in terms of coverage engagement with the media news wise agencies are getting more stronger etc but also look at the human side look at how the brand footprints are going to make a difference to the people and the ecosystem and the world in general if you can do that and I can tell you agencies sometimes don't push the client to do that you will find a huge space and respect with the client's eyes so focus on these three four things and be completely transparent and honest and compassionate and there you are great winning formula alright so let me let me try to submit wonderful thoughts from Roma and Parish but let me give you a little bit brass tags when I got into the public relations business anytime I went and met a client I was asked the same question so how many journalists do you know and how many articles can you get for me and therefore I used to call it the know who world knowing who was far more important than the know how world and I didn't come from the know who world and I was the big champion and proponent of the know who the question is sorry the know how the know who is going to become more and more irrelevant as Parish already said new smaller outlets more fragmentation how many people will you ever know enough to be able to say I know enough but the question is so what's the know how and what's the know how needed today and in the immediate future that is going to be the competencies that are going to be respected and valued by clients and peers and I think that's number one the know how to be able to create a simple compelling story which is based on credible and compelling facts on behalf of your clients whether it's going to be in audio, video text format you need to be multi skill in the way you want to be able to tell your stories because that was the most important part if you had a good story and you were able to construct it well it can engage people two you have to think about multifunctional skills because today digital advocacy traditional public relations all has diffused boundaries one regulatory move and Parish's business can go for a tailspin and the next three months he'll be working and running around the government offices rather than trying to think about anything else and that's true for any one of our clients and the agency the post-COVID world is not going to allow for the strict boundaries between corporate affairs, public relations digital advocacy therefore the know how will have to be multifunctional and multimodal from people and we will have to be good at several things without being masters of everything so our ability to be able to guide clients and build these multifunctional capabilities over a period of time but with the content in the heart of everything that we do will dim different set of preparedness will demand a level of intellectual integrity and caliber which I don't believe comes from the know who world that is a different now the know who the know how makes you strong and the know who becomes actually an amplifier I just want to add a number to again to our cultural we've been largely successful also in the small outfit is because I always said one thing to my young especially my youngsters that don't get scared of two people in a life one is media one is your client you know you got a strong conviction if you worked hard there's an effort forget the output and the outcome there's an effort there then you have to put your foot on the door don't get bullied by anybody scared of your wife and lord well that's a different foot on the mouth disease that's a different one fantastic session I can tell you that fantastic session I just want to thank all of you for having shared your valuable insights I have one last quick one before we all scoot it's been a very tough gloomy time for the industry things have been very fluid and as we all know that in large urban centers especially the cities the large cities the metros, the lockdown is likely to get extended things will possibly get a little more you know harder and tougher before they get better so what is your one last parting message of hope before we log off from here what is your one last parting message of hope to people in the industry the ones who are online watching look this is not a let me take that first Roma first you go go ahead I think the men are dominating here okay that was said lightly finally that was said lightly so I think what the ray of hope today is that the brands which are reliable which are trustworthy and who have proved their metals they are really going to last the new ones which are going to emerge in the new normal are going to be the wild cards and they are the ones who are also going to get an opportunity to look at both the wild cards and we should also look at the reliability and trust and resilience of the trusted brands which are going to emerge stronger but I can tell you the wild cards are going to play their own game and they are going to do well so I think there is a lot of hope in this situation that we have learnt the new things that we learnt during the three weeks every day has been a new day for us every day has been a new learning for us I think the young and the bold are there as Ashwini mentioned they are the ones who will be in the forefront but at the same time the experience that we have learnt over this three weeks cannot match anything that we have ever learnt in the past and I think that's what the way forward one week in a crisis is one year of learning so I mean that's the analogy right you spend one week in a crisis you learn one year worth of work more than that a decade of learning it's almost a decade okay so before I before I allow Mr. to have the last word in this I'll sort of talk about look in my opening comments I talked about new rules new opportunities is this an existing crisis absolutely not do we have a difficult time ahead of us? absolutely but in every difficulty comes a new set of opportunities the rules of the game will change we have to be smart enough to understand where the new opportunities will come and what the new rules will entail that we do okay so I don't think anybody has to have a gloom-goom failure on this the smarter ones will be the guys will figure it out faster than anybody else and those are the guys who will survive and thrive there's no one formula which says Mujhe Bachalo I think this is to all my fellow communicators across you know agencies and clients and you know the digital and all platforms that if you look at the largest companies it still has a very very high-end functioning effective corporate communications agency teams and the teams are small if you look at a very large company the marketing size would be 5000-8000 people technical guys 10-15000 people supply chain finance, IT and HR and but the communications agency teams are very small Roma, myself you know Rohit is not there we manage very very large $50 billion, $100 billion $120 billion organizations globally with a small team right nothing is going to happen to this team because if there is anyone in the entire organization you know starting from the chairman and the CEO who of course will take charge and lead an anchor he will also look at you and it depend on you to help him and to hold his hand and her hand to take you through this crisis because nobody else in the whole organization that can teach you and can become in the situation of crisis than any other facet that there are so have the faith and have the passion and have the positivity which you all have and tell me believe me one year, one and a half years or maybe less or more like I said more optimist when the reversal comes when the good times come you will see that you will grow up big time so keep smiling and be very positive it's not hopeful be positive it will be all good for all of us fantastic thank you so much I would like to thank all of you Roma thank you Paresh, Ashwani I know Gillip had to scoot 10 minutes back he had another session to attend Rohit I am told could not join he had somebody in his family who fell unwell last minute but thank you for your valuable time I am sure the PR and corporate communication industry will be out of this crisis very soon and we will be able to create new avenues of opportunity and new avenues for growth once the lockdown is over thank you so much Thank you for the opportunity, Naval and Anurag and next year on media thanks guys for listening and good to see you Roma and good to see you Ashwani after a long time Thanks very much I will be able to have this conversation with a wide set of people in the industry and of course my illustrious panelists and many thanks Naval and Anurag learned a lot hearing people and looking at the questions many many thanks Thank you Ashwani Thank you, take care, stay safe