BCCP on ecommerce sector after

lockdown phase during Corona(COVID19)

Baran Chandra
 Impact on the Economy is big
Major losses likely to be :
• Experts have pegged losses caused due to the
three-week lockdown at Rs. 9 lakh crore, which is
almost 4 % of the country's GDP.
• Across industries, businesses are keenly awaiting
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's
announcement on a fiscal relief package.
 Small businesses suffer big
• A report based on a survey conducted by SOLV, a B2B e-commerce platform
for Small and Medium Enterprises, indicated that 90 per cent of small
businesses interviewed have been negatively affected by the Covid-19
outbreak and restrictions.
• All small businesses that took part in the survey have lost 35 per cent
business on an average compared to the figures last year during the same
period.
• Out of the surveyed companies, at least 17 per cent have taken a loan and
will not be in a position to pay it back if the business situation worsens.
• Small businesses and SMEs engaged in the manufacturing and sale of non-
essential goods will also suffer significantly during the period.
• Domestic brokerage Emkay said the unorganised sector will be the worst-
affected due to the lockdown.
 COVID 19 Scenario in India
• At least 75 districts across India were under lockdown to tackle the
coronavirus that has infected 415 people and killed seven in the
country with health experts warning a big jump could be imminent.
• Though India’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs had urged states to allow
some e-commerce deliveries to ensure essential supplies, different
state notifications created confusion and have marred operations.
• China’s Alibaba Group-backed online grocery firm BigBasket said it
faced disruptions in many cities as police were not fully aware of
certain exemptions announced by state governments for grocery
deliveries and had stopped some of BigBasket’s delivery staff from
operating.
 Effect of COVID 19 in ecommerce space

• Meanwhile, a field that should benefit from the lockdown—the country’s

booming e-commerce sector—is also running into roadblocks.
• The central government exempted e-commerce platforms from lockdown
measures, yet some firms have reported snags at the local level.
• BigBasket, India’s largest online supermarket, told its customers on
Tuesday that the company was “not operational due to restrictions imposed
by local authorities on the movement of goods in spite of clear guidelines
provided by the central authorities to enable essential services.”
• Other major players like Amazon and the Walmart owned Flipkart, which
together control roughly 60% of India's e-commerce market, had to
temporarily suspend operations on Tuesday because of the lockdown
restrictions. Later that day, Amazon announced that during the lockdown it
would deliver only essential services like groceries. On Wednesday,
Flipkart followed suit, yet there were still reported incidents of local
authorities blocking deliveries of essential goods.
Potential challenges department wise

• Internal Stake holders i.e. various departments

1. Operations
2. HR
3. Finance

• External Stake holders

1. Customers
 Operational Challenges
• Disruptions and delay in delivery leading to CPD breach
• Transportation blockage leading to break in inventory
transfer
• Placement of orders stopped
• Huge number of already placed orders pending to be
delivered
• Shortage of Manpower
• Customer escalations
 HR challenges
• Delivery people unwilling to continue work because of
contamination
• Support staff not willing to rejoin
• Warehouse manpower worried about health
• Overall manpower shortage
• Relocated people not willing to comeback
• People working from home worried about attendance
• Overall staff worried about salary during the lockdown
• Attendance calculation
 Finance challenges
• Payments from Clients pending
• Payments to vendors pending
• Already pain inventory not received due to
lockdown
• Salary disbursement
• Running costs
 Let’s Plan it
• Considering the situation, a plan to be prepared to run the business
at least at a break even point for next three months
• HR, OPS and Finance team to sit together and prepare a budget for
the next quarter
• Potential challenges and resolutions to be discussed in detail
• A new strategy should be formulated to mitigate manpower
shortage, prevent loss and retention of clients
• A back up plan to be chalked down for emergency situations in
Manpower shortage, finance crunch and other unforeseen situations
• Most importantly, competitors activities to be reviewed and planning
accordingly
 How operations team can outshine
• Proper manpower planning to be done in collaboration
with HR team
• Prioritization to be done in terms of delivering the
pending orders ASAP( New CPDs should be determined )
• Available manpower to be encouraged to stretch as
much as possible
• Feasible incentive schemes to be deployed
• Managers should be open to handle any abrupt situation
 How HR team will make it possible
• Delivery people and support staff should be counseled
• The staff members to be trained on maintaining hygiene and
sanitization
• Outstation staff to be contacted and asked to rejoin
• New manpower planning to be done in collaboration with Ops
• Staff members to be assured about their salary and other
perquisites as per norms
• New incentive scheme and R&R should be implemented to
motivate the staff members work harder
• Some refresher training and process training to be implemented
 Finance team will do the following
• Pending payments for vendors to be made
• Clients should be requested to clear the dues as much as
possible
• Daily warehouse running cost and miscellaneous costs to be
reduced as much as possible for a period of three months to
minimize the loss incurred during lockdown
• Some incentive schemes to be approved for delivery staff
and warehouse staff to keep them motivated
• Small budget to be approved for R&R in collaboration with
HR and OPS team
External Stakeholders- Challenges faced by
customers
• Customers worried about their deliveries
• Not able to place new orders
• Not able to find products on Websites
• Skeptical about contamination from delivery
people and products
 Steps to be taken by HR for better
Customer experience
• Delivery people to be educated on hygiene and
proximity with customers
• Asking them to use mask compulsorily when
interacting with customers
• Ensuring they wash hands frequently and use
disinfectant when required
• Providing the delivery people with masks and
hand sanitizers
Thank you