The government has extended the nationwide lockdown until May 3, in view of rising number of positive coronavirus cases. With over 190 countries affected due to the pandemic, economic activity across the world has come to a virtual halt, the impact of the virus is expected to be earth shattering.

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IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva has called the pandemic "the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression". Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said India's growth will depend on the intensity, duration and spread of the pandemic and that COVID-19 hangs over the future like a specter.

In this edition of The Media Dialogues, CNBC-TV18 takes a look at into how businesses are navigating this worldwide crisis.

First up, Anupriya Acharya, CEO of the Publicis Groupe South Asia shared her assessment of how businesses and brands are coping up with the slump in sales and production and what they are likely to do once the pandemic is behind us.

She said, “Most states extending the lockdown period is a very good thing and now we are almost three weeks into the lockdown and all the initial learnings have already happened, it is important both from people’s health point of view, we have seen globally markets which have not reacted to it swiftly are suffering more than what we are over here. So I am fully supportive of this extension in lockdown.”

Speaking about business behaviour, she added, “It is as Black Swan event. There have been many economic shocks in the past as well like the great economic depression and the recent 2008-09 global meltdown, there have been multiple natural disasters and wars, but this in that sense is truly unexpected.

"Business has been impacted quite rapidly, all of us have gone through that as one country after the other is getting impacted by COVID-19 and getting into some sort of a lockdown. Safety and well-being of the people at workplace is the first priority. Very soon it was followed by getting to work from home. The experience has been different for each sector and then as you get used to working from home, almost parallelly you start thinking of business continuity and business management and that comes into focus altogether.”

“Clearly there are sectors which are in the essential space like the grocery, healthcare and pharmaceutical which have suddenly swung into action like never before and we are running short on supply over there given the panic buying. Then there are sectors like travel, tourism, retail which have had a complete meltdown in a very short time. Then we are seeing that work from home has become the new normal and everybody has gotten used to it quite quickly. Stock markets have taken a hit globally as well as in India,” Acharya stressed.

“It is extremely important for brands to be in full view of the consumer, we find with our clients that the communication has gone up multifold and everybody is so appreciative of the fact, now communication is key and that is true not only for the B2B business but for the B2C business as well,” she said.

“When the world opens up post COVID-19, would not be the same as it was before the pandemic. For starters, there is the extremely high-ticket option. Necessity is the mother of invention and it is also the mother of adaptation and adoption, and business and societies are adapting technology options very fast and smoothly.

"Interestingly we find that in lockdown stages, there is unavailability of a lot of brands and products which people are used to and hence people are having to use substitutes, now if the substitutes work well, who is to say that people will not stick to those substitutes. There is a surge in DIY, so who is to say that people are not going to start with hobbies like cooking and gardening and fitness at home and then currently we are also doing a lot of strategy workshops with our clients, everybody is wanting to know how is their business impacted right now and how it will be in the future. This is a mega event that has happened and that will change people’s behavior, people are not going to forget it in a hurry, people have discovered a lot of new things,” she shared.