COVID-19 has been unrelenting in its toll on humanity, leading leaders from private and public think-tanks to put out their best resources for revival and survival. One such initiative has been undertaken by YES BANK in association with CNBC-TV18. ‘Rising with Resilience – The India Story’ is a series of discussions with corporate honchos, industry veterans, experts and government officials deliberating upon India’s economic convalescence.

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The Macros Impacting the Economy

The series commenced with an exclusive conversation between Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor, CNBC-TV18, and Rajeev Kumar, Vice-Chairman, Niti Aayog. Rajeev displayed confidence over the GDP estimates for 2021 and made optimistic growth forecasts for the coming 2-3 years. He stressed the need for infrastructure development with a shorter gestation period and the endeavor would be to seek adequate private sector intervention in these projects. Recommendations on public sector units for strategic disinvestment and privatization are already mid-way, and Rajeev emphasized the need to mobilize non-tax revenues. He also spoke about the need to enhance public healthcare facilities in Tier II and Tier III towns. Defending the rise in import duties, he said the move would protect the interest of domestic industry, building its competitive advantage and economies of scale. He strongly feels that the essence of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat scheme is to forge a globally competitive self-reliant India, raise productivity and upgrade technology.

Sharing the outlook within the banking sector, Prashant Kumar, MD & CEO, YES BANK, said “While the throughput on our accounts has gone back to pre-COVID-19 times, we have to see how the improvement achieved will be sustained by fiscal and monetary support.” Dr. Prashant deems it fit to synergize public and private healthcare delivery systems into one string for efficient management. According to Kamal Bali, President and Managing Director, Volvo Group, this is clearly India’s manufacturing moment to rise to the occasion and make the most of the opportunity of the rebalancing taking place in value chains globally; PLI is only going to give a fillip to this value proposition, he says. Speaking on coming together as an industry to reap benefits of policy measures, Suresh Narayanan, Chairman – National Committee on Food Processing Industries, CII, vouches by the four virtues of confidence, consolidation, coherence and commitment for the conduct of business.

MSME’s Path to Recovery

Since COVID-19 disrupted businesses, the Government has actively engaged in creating a viable ecosystem to ensure the revival of the MSME sector which employs a chunk of the country’s population. The ECLGS stimulus and a slew of other initiatives have played an important role in the resurrection of his sector. Rajan Pental, Global Head – Retail Banking, YES BANK, speaks about how it is working on numerous measures to aid MSMEs and address their banking and non-banking needs. Mohandas Pai, Aarin Capital feels that access to capital is a burning issue for this sector, and though the government schemes nursed companies back on their feet, much is left to be desired. Ashok Saigal, Co-Chairman, CII National MSME Council, spoke about how the sector is coming around, and expressed concern over the cash flow scenario of most MSMEs. With regard to the support extended to small-time vendors, Abhinay Chaudhari, Co-founder, Big Basket, mentioned that the payments to base-level vendors are cleared within 24 hours. YES BANK is working to address MSME capital concerns and is looking at increasing their share of loan from 48% to 60% over the next couple of years. The agility and responsiveness of MSMEs shall play an instrumental role in their turnaround as they leverage the measures which are being doled out in their favor.

Bolstering Manufacturing Sector

The ecosystem supporting manufacturing and supply chain are picking pace in the aftermath of COVID-19. Structurally there is a fundamental shift in the operations of the businesses involved in this space. Accelerated tech adoption has enabled the recovery of businesses such as that of Lending Kart, where it has been observed that borrowers no longer shy away from taking care of their financial needs remotely through the online medium. Smaller towns are opening up to the possibilities of accessing finance digitally which has encouraged Lendingkart to launch a special product called the Lending Kart Accelerate to cater to their requirements as mentioned by Harshvardhan Lunia – Co-founder & CEO, Lendingkart. The supply chain is no longer restricted to retail or B2B delivery but has extended to the last mile, the end consumer, explained Dhruvil Sanghvi – CEO, LogiNext. He also added how micro fulfillment centers have sprung into action to tackle competent delivery systems. There is clear outsourcing of non-core functions to drive efficiencies; increased automation is the need of the hour; and optimal working capital requirements are a must as pointed out by Ajay Nair, Leader, Supply Chain Transformation, PWC India. Banks are moving away from traditional functions of a finance provider to a partner in the progress of their clients. API integrations, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are being deployed to enhance services with regard to credit servicing, documentation, GST and other such needs, said Ashish Agarwal, Global Head – Wholesale Banking, YES BANK.

Unicorns Soar

India is in the midst of a startup revolution with encouraging figures bearing testimony to its insatiable entrepreneurial environment. “People have seen spectacular returns on the bounce back of the markets,” said Nitin Kamath, speaking about the rise in equity trading as a result of COVID-19, which has been favorable for Zerodha. With a young populace not excessively speculative, the firm is buying pedigree stocks so there is an overall optimism to the financialization of the country.

“India is poised to emerge as the largest economies using Telemedicine” quoted Sharad Sharma as he dwelled on liberalization of drones, open sky policy, WANI (Wireless Access Network Interface), the Open Credit Enablement Network, Data opportunity and other such steps in the direction of growth acceleration for India.

Ajay Rajan, Country Head, Transaction Banking, YES BANK, spoke about YES BANK’s initiatives to encourage the growth of the start-up economy, a slew of specialized banking and non-banking efforts which are aiding startups from their fledgling stage to their growth stage. Today we have unicorns based purely on the domestic market,” explains Saurabh Srivastava, Co-founder and Former Chairman, NASSCOM, adding that it’s a far cry from earlier days when startups were assessed on their global potential. He adds that the environment is ripe for startups as they thrive on social recognition of their efforts and world-class entrepreneurs who are seeking to scale their businesses.

This is a partnered post.