Mr. Ankit Agrawal was interviewed by AIAMA (All India Agarbathi Manufacturers Association) Magzine, Bangalore on ‘The Times of Corona’ where he talked about future business plans and strategies, managing SKUs, and scope on new launches in the Pandemic Era.

Addressing to the question related to making decision in the evolving phase of COVID-19 he said, “Decisions and strategies by the authorities to tackle the situation are getting changed in a matter of a few hours because it’s an evolving situation. In such scenario, one can only respond and not make predictions and solid future plans.” He then mentioned the fact that every business is going to be affected by the pandemic and turnovers will be comparatively low. Hence, it’s important to keep the focus on reducing the costs and maintaining the cash/ liquidity while focusing on the core products of the business. It’s beneficial to ramp up things in a phased manner rather than going with full force. Another important task to be executed is to safely accommodate same number of workforce at the same place.

“The only way of realistically tackling this scenario would be to have an honest and hard look at our businesses.” Mr. Agrawal said while sharing the insights of planning strategies on managing disrupted supply chains. “Let’s plan to effectively use available resources and by resources I mean both, raw material and human resource wisely. With limited workforce it’s wise to concentrate on packing those variants which are less laborious in nature. Focus on the highest selling SKUs and ensure availability for it.”

When Mr. Ankit Agrawal was asked about launching a new product during the Pandemic, he talked of the worries people in general have during an epidemic, whether it be buyers or shopkeepers. He brought the attention to the fact that people aren’t really shopping leisurely right now, they just quickly want to get essentials and return to the safety of their homes. “As a business house, it’s wise for us to get back to first replenish the market with stocks of existing SKUs and then look at newer products when most things are back to normal, I mean raw material supplies, workforce availability, and people stepping out spending both time and money freely.” He added.

Talking of the Agarbatti demand in the market he told that people continue the consumption of agarbatti, and it might increase as people are spending more time indoors. It’s the external factors like disrupted supply chain, Dollar fluctuations, transportation, and huge nature of production that would serve as the real challenge.

He concluded the interview with the core message of Jaan hai to jaahan hai, emphasising on the need to stay safe, stay positive and empathise with

Zed Black is the leading manufacturer and supplier of Agarbatti. The brand is endorsed by the ace cricketer MS Dhoni . The company has employed 2500 Staff out which 80% of staff is women. Zed Black is also an exporter of Incense sticks in 41 different countries.

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