The lecture was a part of the Eighth Edition of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat – Vocal for Local – Moving towards Self-Reliant India’.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), one of the apex trade associations of India in association with ITC Sunfeast concluded the eighth edition of its Wisdom Series lecture titled ‘Business Continuity dealing with adversity’ on the theme of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat – Vocal for Local – Moving towards Self-Reliant India’. The event saw an expert panel consisting of Mr. Chakradhar Gade, Founder, Country Delight, Mr. Prasoon Gupta, Co-Founder, Sattviko, Mr. Suhail Sameer, Group President, BharatPe. The session was moderated by Mr. Anil Rajput, Chairman, FMCG Council on Brand Promotion & Brand Protection, ASSOCHAM holding an insightful interaction on their life experiences and challenges faced.
Appreciating this great initiative called atamnirbhar bharat and talking about his journey as an entrepreneur Mr. Chakradhar Gade said “Country Delight is a first of its kind Direct-to-Home milk delivery company. Their focus was always on delivering the fresh and natural products to our customers. We deliver the milk in an approximate time of 24 to 36 hours. Currently country delight is serving 15 lakhs houses in the key metropolitan cities of India. Dairy is the industry which has a good scope in the market and the demand is also increasing for the same, so initially this was adopted. Now the target is to broaden the product range . Talking about his delivery service, he said that since milk is perishable product many challenges in our initial days were there as the milk cold chain was not efficient, there was no consistency in the milk etc. So creating a good cold chain system and taking feedback very seriously really helped . Talking about his team, lesser and efficient work force which has passion for the work and good production background is the current practice.”
Sharing his views and experience Mr. Prasoon Gupta said “He is very fortunate to share his experiences with all of us. Talking about is journey he said that this is his second journey as an entrepreneur. He started his first company during his engineering at IIT Roorkee. He said that since I was in one of the premier institutes of the world I was of the believe that there is something need to be changed in our education system. So with this believe we started our first company in edutech in 2008. At that particular time we have around 10,000 customers with us. We create a beautiful platform and did a great work. We were also facing many challenges like we do not have a proper internet connectivity at that time and also people were not that Tech Savvy. So in the year 2012 the company was sold . Today Internet and technology has given us a chance to spend work from home and spend time with our family and also we have seen a rise the in edutech industry. Talking about his current company, he added that super foods are the ones that can be taken as convenient and immunity foods . So it was decided to create a brand called Sattviko. We decided to open a restaurant chain and we have opened 12 restaurants initially. Then in 2017, it was changed to a packed food company. Talking about his team he said that we have a team of around 40 people who are an asset for this company. These were the people who were with us during the worst of a time.”
Sharing his views Mr. Suhail Sameer said that “He is an employee who is made to build brands. Talking about his experience at Sanjiv Goenka group he said that he has played a major role in building brands like Too Yumm! , Dr. Vaidya etc. We have notices that people are always attracted toward the fat and unhealthy food. Though in the research we have found that they write healthy food as their preference but when given a choice they always gets attracted to unhealthy food. So with the thought of introducing something healthy in the market we introduced a brand Too Yumm wherein baked chips were brought in the market. Similarly at Bharat Pe we have seen in a recent time that there are so many app coming in the markets which are consumer based. It was then thought of bringing a merchant app to the market and now it has the maximum acceptance in India. Other app are also charging the transaction fees from its customer but we are not charging any transaction fees and also we have made it very clear that we will only charge fees from our merchants if we are growing their business. We have always focused to serve our target group first we have received many feedback to launch consumer app but we are not launching as this will be a disrespect for our present customers i.e.merchants.”
Mr. Anil Rajput, Chairman, FMCG Council on Brand Promotion & Brand Protection, ASSOCHAM. welcomed all the participants and gave a brief introduction of the panelists. Further talking about the theme, he said that to ensure business continuity, having an emergency scenario is essential. In the current situation, it is vital to react as fast as possible in order to mitigate impacts and other risks and to prepare the organization for the further development of the COVID-19 pandemic and its possible scenarios. Business continuity management covers infrastructure, cyber, employee, business, operational, and communication risks, with the aim of managing an organization that has to face new challenges and risks and wants to ensure continuity of operations and production.