Lockdown Lessons: “COVID-19 has broadened the discourse on wealth management”

India is emerging out of an over two-month long lockdown – a period that has changed our lives, behaviours and the way we conduct business forever. The lessons that we have learnt during the lockdown period and our experiences during the year so far, will help us navigate a world that we had never imagined. It has been a trying time for many of us, with everyone working from home and having to adapt to a new way of working and living. Adgully’s latest endeavour – Lockdown Lessons – is an attempt to present the key learnings that India’s business honchos have learnt and imbibed, and which can help the industry navigate the new normal better.

Read Also: Lockdown Lessons: Stay Connected, Stay Organised, Stay Focused: Khyati Shah

In an interaction with Adgully, Nishant Kashikar, Country Manger – India and Gulf, Tourism Australia, speaks about the mantra to keep up with the ever-evolving scenario, making the most of working from home and the ‘rising optimism’ that will act as a stepping stone for people to regain their confidence and motivation to travel again.

What are your key lockdown lessons as a professional during the lockdown period?

In light of our current adversity, one must adopt a ‘Que Sera, Sera’ or ‘Whatever will be, will be’ attitude to keep up with the ever-evolving scenario and thereby markets.

The pandemic has taught us that while certain things and situations can venture beyond our control, our best case scenario is to remain in the present moment and vanquish energy spent on anxiousness and nerves about the future into more fruitful endeavours, because – this too shall pass.

We live in a day and age where peak physical and mental health will prove to be pivotal in coping with the pandemic and its multitude of after-effects. One can begin their personal reboot from home by actively projecting a calmer and more positive disposition as well as adopting healthier eating habits and a fitter lifestyle.

Therefore, cultivating a sense of calm and honing our ability to adapt have been my two key takeaways in this period.

Please tell us some of the key takeaways in terms of life lessons from the lockdown period.

Navigating the predicaments of the lockdown and bolstering our isolated time to re-invent ourselves.

The lockdown has ushered a great number of us to re-evaluate the fabric of how we operate and in keeping with the same, the following three-pronged understanding can facilitate as a guide to navigating the lockdown:

• The foremost is to ensure continuity by engaging with the industry at both ends, no matter that sector we work within, one must remember that individual organisations are largely dependent on the predicament of the industry. In the case of Tourism Australia, we are working towards increasing knowledge and skill-set of our travel agents. We are constantly working towards empowerment and have trained over 12,000 Indian travel agents, in association with over 110 Australian industry operators and state and territory tourism representatives.
• Secondly, one must recognise and leverage multiple touch-points that continuously engage their customers and audiences. For us, the prime focus herein has been raising awareness, appeal and TOM recall through content, social amplification plans and PR initiatives. Remember the mantra – Don’t do business, but don’t be invisible.
• Lastly and most importantly, this lockdown has given us a much-needed break from the hustle-bustle of our daily lives, which has led to introspection. Looking back at the work that we did, questioning ourselves and preparing ourselves for the new normal are now more important than ever.

How did you manage and achieve work-life balance while working from home?

Our restricted travel movements have allowed us to forge an even stronger bond with our loved ones; time usually cast aside for commuting and driving to work is now being better utilised to connect with our families. Like a great majority of the world, our usage of Zoom and similar conference call apps is now bordering on dependence. We are all working and surviving through this pandemic together and in many ways, the added hours spent with our families, catching up on films or commemorating birthdays and anniversaries of extended family members and even colleagues over virtual group gatherings, is offering a more holistic and wholesome outlook to the situation.

My father and I are both cricket enthusiasts and kicking back over reruns of a cricket match has proven to be a great way to wind down after a long day of work (from home). My wife has recently taken to pursuing Sangeet Visharad courses and having participated in her practice sessions, my focus and concentration on yoga and meditation has received a much-energised boost.

We also have a young Picasso in the making at home in the form of my daughter, who is a budding artist, and it has been great spending quality time with her and taking a proactive part in helping her hone her skills.

It is these sublime facets of family life that many of us have a tendency to overlook or just did not have the time for in our regular schedules, but the repercussions of the pandemic have proven to be advantageous in this respect.

To offset the extended family hours, the days are also busily dotted fielding virtual meetings and engaging with industry patrons, partners, as well as regionally and globally located colleagues.

It has been more than two months since the lockdown was enforced. How are you gearing up for back to office mode?

In acknowledging that we are not operating as part of an emergency business and that Tourism Australia falls under the purview of a non-commercial entity, we do not maintain or have direct interface with the consumers or travelers. However, we do consider the safety and security of our team members to be of optimum concern and we will continue to work from home until such a time arrives, whereby India has successfully flattened the curve of COVID-19. In an effort to mitigate any possibilities of risks, our team has been encouraged to adopt the aforementioned distancing measures and only frequent our physical office under circumstances deemed as critical.

We have also optimised our working and technological solutions to allow us to work independent from the environment of our office, while maintaining unperturbed engagement and communication with our various partners and stakeholders. The shift in work culture has been met with warm embrace by team and external members alike.

Any lessons in financial management that you picked up during the lockdown period?

The pandemic has broadened the discourse on wealth management at both macro and more personalised scale. India has made strides to develop into a splurging economy with greater spending power; however, we could be on the brink of a temporary shift to a savings motivated economy.

This, presumably, short-term phase, termed as ‘rising optimism’, will act as a stepping stone for people to regain their confidence and motivation to travel again. A prominent statistic to emphasise is that less than 0.2 per cent of India’s population proactively partakes in international holidays and as such, we could also see a surge in #RevengeTravel and #RevengeShopping trends once commercial travel is reintroduced. Therefore, we might witness a shift in how India spends.

An estimated 32 million people of Indian origin currently reside overseas and an estimated 750,000 students are registered in international universities. Once travel has proven to be safely reinstated, it can be understood that travelers to engage in international travel first will include – those who would like to reunite with children and grandparents overseas, honeymooners who would have had to halt their postnuptial plans and students. The travel industry is anticipating a momentous comeback from these three segments in particular, who share a defining commonality, that is, deferred travel plans.