Ankur Capital Dialogues - Navigating Recovery Post COVID-19 for Consumer Food Brands

I have the privilege to attend a webinar on 15th April, Wednesday Navigating Recovery Post COVID-19 for Consumer Food Brands organized by Ankur Capital.

The panel had good expertise in FMCG and the food industry. They shared a more comprehensive range of challenges and issues faced by the consumer food brands amid lock-down. I will summarize the webinar in six points:

1. Managing human resources: The legal aspects of managing human movement was relatively easy for the firms. But, a lot of personal communication was established by the leadership team to establish trust between them and employees. There were a lot of queries on the risk involved as the mainstream media has heightened a sense of panic and anxiety. Communication with the employees and all key stakeholders is the key!

2. Organization culture: While business metrics are important, companies should adopt a people-first approach and ensure that the well-being of their employees and customers is the key. The whole culture has been put to the litmus test and the lock-down has put the values of the companies in the action.

3. Alternate partnerships: Companies have ensured seamless supply through partnering with new partners and tackling logistics issues. Companies have re-prioritized the channel distribution strategies by considering the willingness, infrastructure, and payments of the partners. The situation is different for each partner.

4. Embracing technologies solution: Leadership has been pushing for technology like Microsoft Team and Zoom to the reluctant adopters.

5. Financial Liquidity: Startups have negotiated cash discounts to distributors. The Cash crunch has led to the cutting cost and made them functional for 2-3 months. There will be changes in the product portfolio, and processes to make companies more efficient.

6. Ecosystem Recovery: The recovery curve will be U shaped rather than V-shaped in consumer food brands. The behavioral habit of the consumer such as out-of-home shopping, and dining will change as people venture out less often. There will be trust building by brands through reassurance, hygiene, quality, and the process they follow at the back end. Unknown brands will be either buried or raised from the debris. The online groceries ecosystem will change and rapidly evolve in the next 6 months. A lot of medium food brands will change the rules of engagement in the online space.

Covid is a moment of truth and companies are looking to emerge from this stronger. Brands should focus their efforts on building trust and ensuring that the values that the organization stands for come to the forefront during times like these.

Acumen Bootcamp - 5th Week Reflection

Part 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4& of Acumen virtual bootcamp series can be found here.

I approached two of our readings, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United States’ Declaration of Independence in the 5th week of Acumen.

1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Democracy itself constitutes a human right, and therefore nation states not respecting democratic principles open themselves up to just conflict internally and externally. The Declaration emphasize on the rights of humans and create a document that forms a vision for utopia. Therefore, leaders with moral imagination has to step up, tune with one’s own moral compass, and make this as core of our future.

2. In post covid situation, life of most people is in turn-moil and pain. But, I am critical of analyzing United States’ Declaration of Independence at this juncture. This is a revolutionary rhetoric that can be easily hacked by the elements who want to destabilize the consensus for a emergency powers and uprising. This call seems more dubious and hard to be translated into real mass improvement of people. And how it is no different from Mao's call for Cultural Revolution in 1960s where the population was urged to rid itself of the : Old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.

The merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. I will definitely remove this line. And no explanation needed.

Passing Thought:In times of crisis especially disaster, there is nationalism sweeping the communities. There is rise in poll popularity of the leader despite of good or bad handling of the process. And rallying around the leader becomes one of those irrational things. Richard Perle, once an advisor to Libyan Dictator, Gaddafi had said “Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.” Being a thinking person in a crisis is a tomfoolery and seen as act of internal enemy. India have a troll force working to keep dissent away!

Acumen Bootcamp - 4th Week Reflection

Part 0, 1,2, and 3 of Acumen virtual bootcamp series can be found here.

I was introduced to Immunity to Change tool that is adapted from the works of Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. This tool has helped me to observe and interpret within myself (the system) and surfaces internal contradictions and (possibly faulty) operating-assumptions-taken-as-Truths.

There are four ways to analyze: Commitment, Doing / Not Doing Instead, Hidden Competing Assessments and Big Assumptions. For every commitment made, there is another commitment that prevents that change. This is a perfect example of the contradiction is like a driving vehicle with with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. This is an intriguing exercise- to see a picture of oneself and work on the conflicting actions in our lives. I will end this with a quote by V. S. Naipaul on self improvement: “The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.” ...

Additional Motivation:

Solving for agri procurement and market linkage in times of Covid

I attended a webinar on 4th April, Saturday Solving for agri procurement and market linkage in times of Covid organized by Hemendra Mathur, Gauri Sarin, Abhilash Thirupathy, Om Routray, Ashish Khetan and Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya.

Agenda: The idea is to table the challenges and solutions in the context of upcoming Rabi harvest during and after the lock-down. The focus of discussion will be on post-harvest interventions needed from first mile including farm labor, harvesting, procurement, warehousing and cold chain. The stakeholders likely to join the call are mandi traders, farmer bodies, NBFCs, warehousing, cold chain, logistics companies, agri startups in the market linkage side, industry association etc.

Speakers: Anil Kumar SG - Sammunati Jayant Chattarjee (Star Agri ), Pushpendra Singh (Farmer Leader), Khalid Hussain, ITC, Sachin Sharma ITC, Aleen Mukherjee (NCEDX), Aneesh Kumar (NAFPO) and Rahul Gupta, Avanti Microfinance

Discussion: The focus of the call is on food supply chain with areas like farm labour, mandi auctioning, value chain financing, significant credit line and warehousing.

1. Anil Kumar SG- The two phases of the lockdown to be addressed are before and beyond 14th April. The agriculture sector has best of the chances to bounce out earliest. This means that agriculture will get resource allocation, priority attention and collaboration. Samunnati is paying attention towards liquidity crisis as working capital becomes most important in this scenario for both demand and supply partners. Samunnati is looking for: What do FPO have currently, require in next few days and planning in next 3 months with timeline? Access to loans become most important to all the value chain players.

2.Jayant Chattarjee: Agribaazar is a platform to get buyer and seller to meet similar to like e-nam. Since trade must go on to minimize impact on farmers, there is need of alternative market place.

3. Pushpendra Singh: 70% economy is nearly closed at this time and food security of 130 Crore population is in focus. Labour problem is affecting Rabi harvest and will eventually sowing season of Zaayad and kharif is approaching fast. The supply chain is broken due to which both consumer and farmer are paying high prices. Poultry is affected by the rumors and supply chain disruption of feeds. There is an urgent need of liquidity that can be provided through PM Kisan Yojna by increasing the amount by 4 times. Jan Dhan Yojna accounts holder estimated to be about 38 Crore can be transferred INR 1000 per month. KCC limit can be doubled for existing farmers.

4.Khalid Hussain: The cascading of the information hasn't happened in the lower layers of the bureaucracy. Currently, the mandis are closed and harvesting has been stalled. There is need to open mandi in phase manner and allowing private player to purchase directly from farmers with price control as the farmers are exposed to vagaries of the weather. The warehouse and processing units has to be declared as market yards to disperse farmers at multiple points . The financial support will be required for private players working in the loose grain supply chain and logistics. Concor has done a wonderful job by giving subsidy on empty container. For agri-processing, UP Power Corporation has given waiver for few months to food processing industries. To safe guard fruits and vegetables, the import duty has to be increased on fruits and vegetables concentrates. Government has to intervene on the export sector and port functioning to build trust with exporting partners.

5.Sachin Sharma: Procurement of food grain is very important especially APMC acts should be make liberal for the private players. This will avoid crowd gathering at Mandi. There is need to give confidence to labours so that smooth migration becomes easier for them. Green corridors has to created for the movement of milk tankers, truck and food containers. Railway can help through multi point loading and reducing freight charges. Need to re-look RODTEP scheme. Processing of F&V has to be encouraged due to perishable nature of products and power sops can boost the industry.

6.Aleen Mukherjee- Digital transaction has to be increase on FPO level. The storage part has become an issue as silos/jutes bags aren't available on the farm gate level. NCDEX is working on solutions especially through two ecosystems: NERL and NEML spot market. Electronic warehouse receipt can be issued as generating finance can becomes easy. This will ease cash flow on FPOs. MSP procurement can be done through electronic ware house level that is already working with strict quality norms. The third aspect is about uncertainty around futures bench-marking. Percolation of the government instruction on transportation of essential commodities has become essential. FPO as sourcing points will ease on cash flow issue for farmers.

7. Aneesh Kumar: There is a pending payment for NREGS that will create liquidity in the rural areas. Extending the insurance coverage can ease the situation for the farmers. Creation of support cell in Agriculture Department in each state maybe helpful. Major consumption centers like Delhi will not be fully opened for the business. The new economic challenge is returning migrant in the rural areas. Basic Income transfer to mitigate the risk is an urgent step that can be taken.

8.Rahul Gupta: Avanti Finance is involved in both Balance sheet lending and off balance sheet lending. Financing is critical hence moving on the paperless and cashless digital platform becomes more important. Relevant will be government intervention to PSBs for priority sector lending. This can be passed to the end use either farmer or FPO to fight liquidity squeeze.

Acumen Bootcamp - 3rd Week Reflection

Part 0, 1 and 2 of Acumen virtual bootcamp series can be found here.

The sessions are really good till now. Individuals are more open to ideas and suggestions and want to demonstrate an interest in getting up to speed. I am sharing task performed by me this week.

1. Superpower: There is an article by Seth Godin: What is your superpower? When do you come alive? I have documented my superpowers below:

a. I always document best practices and professional understanding on a topic through blog. This has facilitated creation of an institutional memory bank and drawing insights while walking on the road less traveled.

b. I enjoy diverse range of literature, blogs, cinema and interacting with different social circles. As this gives me range of knowledge extended far beyond my chosen profession. I assume that investment in specialization in one area alongside a vast body of knowledge can be a powerful driver of original thought.

These superpowers has given me ability to have a good outreach to a diverse group of stakeholders and impacted leaders in designing realistic plans. I usually come alive while volunteering for a cause and building networks of like minded people.

2. Improvement Goals:I have to identify my improvement Goal: “If you could get better at ONE THING — the One Big Thing that would make the greatest difference to your happiness and effectiveness, what would that be?” My responses: a. Be a much better husband than I am. b. To not be committed for a task in hurry and once committed to a task, complete before / on time .

I know this intuitively because I haven't been trying to get better at or change for a while. And, I have heard this from family and colleagues in the feedback/reviews.

3. Reflection on article : How will you measure your life? by Clayton M. Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at at Harvard Business School.

I have thought about the metric by which my life will be judged. I am an enthusiast, not an expert. At the age of thirty four, I had realized that I am doing will be insignificant but that will define me. Curiosity and Enthusiasm are the force that didn't change with time. What is more difficult to tackle in the life ? As for me, I always ponder over dilemma rather than questions. Because, there is always financial insecurity, family dispute, and a chaos lurking around the corner. The immediate needs always have tussle with long term goals.