No one expected the events following the coronavirus outbreak to unfold so rapidly. Increased international mobility resulted in a rapid spread of the virus. The virulence and ease with which this strain of the virus spread was grossly underestimated. Slowly the extent of devastation it wreaked on whole nations was becoming evident. Cities and nations were quickly going under lockdown. India went under lockdown too.

Bigbasket was under siege. On the one hand, people began flocking to the site and app. Many who had never shopped for groceries online were forced to give it a shot. Someone on social media pointed out that this was equivalent to the demonetisation moment for Paytm. The big difference was that Paytm was a pure internet business and a surge in traffic could be handled by adding servers and re-architecting the software.

The Challenge

In contrast, Bigbasket is a brick and mortar business and adding capacity is time consuming even in normal times. And these were not normal times. Capacity was shrinking because people who worked in the warehouses and last-mile delivery preferred the safety of staying home like everyone else who were forced to do so.

It was kind of interesting because the lockdown was adversely impacting several industries and millions of livelihoods were at stake. So, there was a lot of inbound interest from companies and industry associations to absorb their staff temporarily since Bigbasket was deemed to be an essential services provider.

We have been in talks with many companies and industry associations. Some of them are yielding results and some are proving to be difficult to operationalise on the ground. We have signed agreements with Uber, Redbus and many others.

A crisis is a war-like situation where field commanders need to call the shots. That is the approach we took and empowered a hundred (hundred is just symbolic) leaders across the company who took ownership to strengthen capacity with an overall program manager and an executive sponsor. The role of the program manager was to quickly make the right connections and keep track of progress. The role of the sponsor was to push things internally with speed and overcome roadblocks.

The other important step we took was to create respect between the ‘soldiers’ and the ‘artists’ — metaphorically speaking — who represented different functions in the regions and corporate. This strengthened collaboration and teamwork. This was absolutely essential to cover for one another and move with speed.

A Team Effort

Teams were discussing and closing things in the middle of the night. This was also the time to appreciate and recognise good work. This was the time to ignore mistakes that people made as long as the intentions were right. This was the time to think clearly and act decisively. Every choice had some negative consequences. One could freeze like a deer in the headlights. It was important not to get perplexed and take calls and move ahead.

We had to also keep a hawk-eye on the hygiene standards in every single distribution center and dark store. Masks, gloves, temperature sensors, sanitizers were to be in stock. Every single vehicle had to be fumigated with the right chemicals. All employees had to be religiously tracked for any symptoms. We had to come up with a response process in case any employee tested positive.

Motivating people to come to work under these circumstances is a challenge. Bigbasket was being seen by the nation as a lifeline like no government agency ever was in the history of independent India. The expectations were high. We had to therefore appeal to a higher sense of purpose and duty. Customers were initially sympathetic, but when slots continued to close and they struggled to place orders there was serious frustration. The demand had skyrocketed and there were millions of customers vying for these limited slots.

Fortunately, things are slowly turning around and we are slowly adding capacity. But frankly these are uncertain times and one can never predict or extrapolate. God forbid if an employee in a store tests positive, the store needs to be shut and capacity can further shrink.

In conclusion, it is important for all of us to stay positive, communicate hope and optimism for our teams. God willing we will overcome!

-TN Hari heads the HR department at BigBasket. The views expressed are his personal