May 2020

This article was written by Mr. Sanjiva Jha on Linkedin. Link of the article is here: Reigniting the economy

Mr. Sanjiva Jha is Founder-CEO of BroadArk Technologies Pvt. Ltd. His company owns the brand Y&NOW and works in the field of Education and Skilling. But this is just a small part of his illustrious career of around 28 years at leadership positions with LabourNet Services India Pvt. Ltd., Tata Teleservices Ltd. Reliance Retail Ltd., Boots Healthcare, Cargill India Ltd. etc. He has Masters degree in Management from IRMA and Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering from BIT, Sindri. He has led cross functional teams during growth, massive organizational restructuring post US subprime crisis and merger & acquisitions. 

Reigniting the economy 

We are witnessing massive changes in the workplace today due to the digitization wave to newer and different skill sets required to address the increasingly demanding Industry requirements. As we see, relevant skill sets isthe need of the hour and in this world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA). 

Which are some of the sectors likely to need large numbers of skilled personnel to keep pace with the transformational change ? 

A recent McKinsey report on future of work estimates that almost 50% of work that one does can be automated and that in 60% of the cases almost one-third of the jobs can be automated with technologies existing today! While the impact on various sectors in different countries could differ depending on the labour sector wages, demographics etc. but the automation and digitization is all pervasive and by extension the impact on the skills required to respond to the labour market needs. 

It is estimated that 8-9% of 2030 labour will be in new types of occupations that have not existed before. Clearly there is a need to invest in relevant skills needed to transition to the new roles.  

India has a workforce of nearly 450 mn strong with nearly half a million people joining the workforce annually, it is the second-fastest digitizing economy after Indonesia, what are the likely areas of impact that we expect? How do we future proof ourselves against those changes? A quick peek at some of the key Industries. 

One of the sectors undergoing transformational change is the Information Technology & Information Technology Enabled Services.This industry is clearly seeing changes at both ends - reskilling as well as upskilling to match the growing requirements. We are witnessing requirements in the areas of Block Chain technology, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity specialists, Robotics, CRM specialists to name a few. Many roles will be created in the AI space as it touches our lives through multiple products and services. 

Healthcare has become one of India’s largest sectors - both in terms of revenue and employment. Healthcare comprises hospitals, medical devices, clinical trials, outsourcing, telemedicine, medical tourism, health insurance and medical equipment. It will employ 7.5 mn people from a current level of less than 4 mn. A high priority sector for the Nation, the skill sets required to manage this growth are significant considering the massive expansion and the cutting edge technology on which the industry works.  

Retail is another sector where we are seeing robust growth rates, higher consumer expenditure and unprecedented technological interventions on the move. This along with Ed-tech remains one of the few sectors which has been hiring when the reports last came in! The Indian retail industry has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries. It accounts for over 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 8 per cent of the employment. The market size is pegged at US$ 950 billion in 2018 at CAGR of 13 per cent. The online retail segment is growing at a fast clip of 31%. This sector thrives on online platforms, cloud-based solutions, GPS, AI driven algorithms to unravel why you and I buy what we buy! We are talking about large numbers of workforce and newer relevant skill sets here to sustain the sector growth.. 

On a concluding note - To prevent a worst-case scenario which is, Tech change accompanied by talent shortages, mass unemployment and growing inequality: Reskilling and Upskilling of today’s workforce will be critical. We cannot wait for the current school going generation to learn the requisite skills as they graduate, the current work force will have to be reskilled and upskilled. The writing is clearly on the wall, we need to adapt to the new skills at the same time reskilling and upskilling of the current workforce will need to move on a war footing…

This ongoing crisis of Covid19 is already taking many jobs beyond the possibility; part of it due to the crisis and part of it due to the unknown fear of financial and economic uncertainty. A business leader or an HR-Head is also a human being and will succumb to his/her memories and heuristics. So, some very talented candidates will also lose the job during this period, as it happened during 2008 US Subprime crisis.

But this time is not the time to sit and curse this challenge but this is the time to focus on your personal brand. As some talented people may lose job during this pandemic covid19 due to the fear of uncertainty, they will be picked up again much sooner than they can expect when economy picks up steam once again. They are just needed to stay focused on building their personal brand and communicating it to the target audience.

Many neuroscience researches says that human brain receives more than 11 million bit data but can process not more than 50 bit per second and that's why, many decisions are made even before blinking the eye. Robert Cialdiani, the bestselling author of “Influence” and “Pre-suation” has rightly said that we "pay" attention of something which is important to us because we trade it off with attention on something else which we don’t find important.

The first process of brand decision involves forming the representations of choice alternatives- that is, brand identification. This entails processing of incoming information, so that different options for choice are identified. At the same time, your customer needs to integrate the information on internal states (candidate requirement to fill the position) with external states (job description and requirements).

Humans are predominantly visual creatures and most of the information we receive is visual. Even if receive the information through other senses, we try to visualize the image of the product. Milosavljevic, Koch and Rangel in their research paper in 2011 had indicated that consumers can identify two different food brands and make their mind about which they prefer in as little as 313 milliseconds or roughly one third of a second. I am not saying that you are a food brand, but what’s wrong in becoming so desirable. Just think over it.

Recent studies in neuroscience indicate the four fundamentals of attention: 1) saliency filters or bottom up features 2) Top-down control 3) competitive visual selection; and 4) Working memory. First one is saliency filters or bottom up features, which means what you have in you to offer. Bottom up or saliency filters automatically select most important information from all the available information. So, if your elevator pitch, salient features of your personal brand is not fitting in with the memory and heuristics of your recruiter, then you will definitely not be picked up despite all your talent when they are in rush. Your cognitive load can’t hold too much of information at one time and so of your recruiter’s. Economy will start picking up the steam sooner than later. Human mind can’t stay in pain for too long; it will fight back to gain control over the situation. And when it will start picking up the steam, your recruiters will be in hurry to fill the position and then your bottom up information should be ready for them to pick you up among the crowd.

How can you do that:

1) Make of list of what you stand for

2) Make a list of your destinations

3) Connect the dots of what you stand for and what where are your destinations

4) Take help of your colleagues who can critically advise you

5) If possible, talk to your boss from either current or previous organizations and discus what you have prepared

6) Create a back story and start communicating it along with your check list on the regular basis with your target audience using social media, messaging apps, direct call and one to one meetings.

7) Another option will be to take help of manpower consultants and have been doing the work of profile creation and personal branding, because they have been working in the thick and thin of recruitment work.

One time final request; don’t waste your time on cursing the pandemic; it is what it is. When it will retreat, it will leave behind a fertile land, on which you can grow the tree of your successful life.

COVID19 has reset the world order and new world order is booting. Since the new world order is booting, old world order is stuck in the throat of everyone; from the governments to businesses to common people.

Though I, like everyone know that every aspect of human life, businesses and governance is affected by this pandemic, I was curious to know how exactly it is impacting supply of essential items in India, which remain opened throughout this lockdown as it should have been. I talked to couple of my friends who have been leading the team selling essentials for their organizations and I am presenting their challenges as they are. They had some “Time to Survive (inventory in hand to cover the sudden eventuality)” but “Time to Recover (get into smooth operation mode with every function of supply chain working properly and optimally)” is still a long shot, despite some of the challenges I think might have been solved.

Here are the challenges they are facing in supplying staples and other essential items:

1)Logistics and Load factor: For smaller organizations or areas where order loads are small, Full Container Load (FCL) are not possible, transporters normally club the orders and deliver at destinations. Though Less than Container Load (LCL) is comparatively costly and less safe, Hundredweight freight method solves the purpose. During this period, as many small businesses remained closed, for small orders, LCL remained an impossible task and so, transporters increased the freight charges to cover the cost and incentive.

2)Credit: Credit helps in creating more liquidity, surplus fund, more customer engagement and increased risk taking appetite. But in this extremely challenging time, everyone’s risk appetite has decreased and wants to protect his/her fund liquidity. This has resulted in disappearance of credit from the market.

3)Stocks: Even for essentials, arranging stock has become challenge due to many factors and it has led to prices of many items increasing a lot. So, prices have become unrealistic as of now and whoever has the stock, charges more for it.

4)Timing Restrictions: Since timing restrictions are there in APMC market yard in metros like Mumbai, picking up and loading the stock itself takes time and in turn, supply is getting crippled. Problem gets even more complicated due to different timing restrictions for retail counters in different areas.

5)Labour challenges: Due to lockdown, there is huge shortfall in supply of labourers. To meet the demand of market, traders are trying to achieve the same throughput from workforce available, which is an impossible feat and can’t sustain for long. For migrant labourers, day and night work is resulting into heavy fatigue which can’t be repaired by money and they just want to leave for their hometown. This problem will only increase once interstate movement of labourers starts freely. A leading online grocer had to cancel around 20000 orders between Rs.30-35 Crore. There is no dearth of orders but there is scarcity of manpower to service those orders.

6)Lack of clarity about government notifications and nature of products at ground zero: Administrative staff i.e police and local administration at ground zero don’t have complete knowledge of food supply chain and so everyone is reading the same rule differently. Since no one wants to get caught at wrong foot during this pandemic, this challenge makes matter more complicated.

You are invited to add more challenges which are hampering the smooth operation of supply chain of essential items and what should be done in future if similar challenges arise? Automation, credibility based inter-trader credit system, AI based robotics, auto-driven transportation vehicles, delivery using drones are part of solution or they will complicate the employment problem of the country?

You will find following blogs on Covid19 useful:

1) Sanjiva Jha Founder CEO BroadArk Technologies on Reigniting the economy

2) Sanjiva Jha Founder CEO BroadArk Technologies on Covid19 Impact

“Unlocking the Mystery of Human Nature- The Tell-Tale Brain” is a masterpiece, written by Dr. V.S.Ramchandran, who is quite rightly, called ‘The Marco Polo of neuroscience’.

Divided in nine chapters, this book takes us to the mysterious, intriguing but very informative journey of human brain. Trapped inside the hundreds of billions of neurons and tens of thousands of synapses among each of them lives the mysterious truth of our brain and our behaviour. Each synapses can be excitatory or inhibitory and permutation of all of it presents the possible brain states, which easily exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe. This very statement unravels the truth of human mind and behaviour in front of me.

But this is just the beginning. ‘Phantom Limbs and Plastic Brains’, ‘Seeing and Knowing’, ‘Loud Colours and Hot Babes: Synaesthesia’, ‘The Neurons that shaped the civilization’, ‘Where is Steven? The riddle of autism’, ‘The Power of Babble: The evolution of language’, ‘Beauty and the brain: The emergence of Aesthetics’, ‘The Artful Brain: Universal Laws’ and ‘An Ape with a soul: How introspection evolved’ unravels the mystery of human brain and behaviour one by one. Being the student of Behavioural Economics and Neuromarketing, “Introduction, first chapter ‘Phantom Limbs and Plastic Brain’, second chapter ‘Seeing and Knowing’, fourth chapter ‘The Neurons that shaped the civilization’, sixth chapter ‘The Power of babble: The evolution of language’, eighth chapter is ‘The Artful Brain: Universal Laws’ and ninth chapter ‘An Ape with a soul: How introspection Evolved’ are my favourite.

It is a must buy for everyone who are in the field of neuromarketing, behavioural economics and neuroconsumerscience. Neuroscience as a subject I have not touched despite this book falling into that genre because it is not my domain. I took out only those things which I found relevant for myself.

You can also buy the book following this link: The Tell Tale Brain