S Shriram, VP, Sales & Marketing- Levista Coffee, Bengaluru speaks about business in the time of COVID19
How has COVID19 affected your business?
A Battery has two ends – Negative and Positive. Life is also similar. The ongoing unprecedented global crisis has impacted the trillions of dollars’ worth of Economies & Businesses. However, speaking from our specific business category, the silver lining has been that more people staying/working from home means more beverage consumption. And a beverage, hot or cold is sure to be consumed multiple times in a day. So, as a category Coffee has grown. Now comes the downside. Due to the lockdown, logistics and distribution had been suspended for 10 days now. But things are slowly improving due to government intervention in providing quick approvals and passes for the concerned.
How are your teams working and communicating during such times?
Being a 125-member strong sales team operations across 25 cities in India, we are mostly connected all along over mobile phones. And now it is no different. Since we don’t see each other as often as before, we speak more times a day over calls but otherwise, the coordination has been as usual.
Systems and processes have seen new changes. Do you feel the new way of working will change the way we worked in offices?
Every crisis brings the best in us to the forefront and this crisis has taught us a lot in terms of setting up new processes while also reworking on past ones. But overall, I guess we have improved our way of working tremendously. And I do believe that we would work differently (perhaps more efficiently than before) once the crisis is over.
How are you helping your local community during such times?
Our factory has been closed for close to two weeks. All our offices are closed and all the members of our team are in isolation. However, we are working closely with NGOs and the media to provide relief to the needy.
This is a once in a lifetime event for all of us, do share your reason for optimism?
Only when there’s darkness, we see a need to light a lamp. This crisis is indeed once-in-a-lifetime for me and has brought the world to its knees, thanks to an unknown origin of a deadly virus. Shows how susceptible and vulnerable we humans are, especially with not a single animal being affected during this crisis. My optimism reigns in the fact that like how every night is followed by dawn, there’s an opportunity for another cup of coffee each morning. One cup at a time. One billion to cater to. We will keep our best efforts on.
