Assessment of covid-19 strategies by firms in the aviation, automobile, and real estate sectors

Abstract

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been disruptive in terms of economic activity as well as the loss of human lives. While the first covid wave disrupted the business activity, the second covid wave had a severe impact on the livelihoods. Barring a few exceptions like healthcare, pharma, digital businesses, etc., most sectors were adversely impacted, with both the domestic and export demand plummeting to multi-year lows. This project analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the Aviation, Automobile, and Real Estate industries in detail. While the Aviation sector was the worst impacted amongst the three, the Real estate sector was the best performing, with companies like Godrej Properties witnessing record order booking values. The impact due to COVID-19 has been all-pervasive, permeating across the value chain of companies. While the companies cannot control the occurrence, they have reduced the magnitude of impact by undertaking several strategic initiatives. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the strategic responses to COVID-19 by the companies across industries. This report seeks to analyze the strategic responses of firms in the Aviation, Automobile, and Real Estate industries and also evaluate the impact on the financial performance. The responses range from companies enhancing their revenue streams by capitalizing on new opportunities and augmenting channels to realigning the supply chain by developing alternate sourcing capabilities. Our analysis suggests that a strong focus on controlling costs and a push towards digitization of business processes & customer engagement are the critical themes in strategic responses by firms in these sectors. Based on the analysis, the report includes a framework capturing various strategic responses, our views on the magnitude of their financial impact, and the period for which the impact/benefits will accrue to the firm. While COVID-19 has definitely been disruptive, it is also a blessing-in-disguise, giving companies an opportunity to reimagine business processes, realign supply chains and rethink customer engagement. It is rather an exciting 'new normal' with businesses treading a new path in this uncertain environment.