The coronavirus posed a challenge to businesses by forcing them to go into prolonged lockdown, but they could survive the crisis through a calibrated approach. The industries could mitigate the impact of lockdowns by adopting digitisation on a scale that was not seen before, said B. Santhanam, CMD of Saint-Gobain India Private Limited.
Addressing a seminar on the theme ‘Embracing the new normal- Building resilience and emerging opportunities: lives, livelihood and growth’ organised by the Andhra Pradesh (AP) Chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), here in virtual mode on Monday, Mr. Santhanam said digitisation has been increasingly adopted across the industry verticals to minimise the impact of lockdown and innovations has become vital in these testing times.
“The COVID-19 crisis also offered opportunities which were to be utilised by evolving proper strategies,” he said.
Sri City Private Limited Managing Director Ravindra Sannareddy said the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ package helped the industries build the capacities required to withstand the impact of the pandemic.
Moderating the panel discussion, Boston Consulting Group partner Shivaprasad Raja said the State’s 975 km-long coastline is its biggest asset and it should be used to the maximum extent possible.
Vijay Subramanian, MD of Alstom Transport (Sri City), Kellogg India director (supply chain) Saurabh Lal, CII-AP chairman D. Ramakrishna and HCL Technologies global operations director and Vijayawada centre head Shiva Prasad and GMR Group vice-president Sreedhar Pothukuchi were among those who took part in the event.
New body
Meanwhile, Datla Tirupathi Raju, executive chairman of Vijaynagar Biotech Private Limited has been elected chairman of CII, AP Chapter for 2021-22 and G. Venkateswara Rao, COO of KCP Sugar and Industries Corporation Limited the vice-chairman.
