How COVID19 Vaccination Program can Safeguard Manufacturers from Operational Challenges?

If the COVID-19 pandemic has hit us all like never before, it has made us strong, as well, like never before. Never had we seen such disruption and disorientation in business before. Never had we shown our character beyond business as such before. Now, the recurring waves of COVID-19 virus variants have posed volatility in the market, giving headwinds to the industry.   

However, it is time the manufacturing industry showed leadership on and off the field. For a manufacturing unit like AceInotec where one component passes from one division to the other, controlling the spread of the virus is not so easy. Vaccination is the only way out to combat the situation. The manufacturing sector should take a proactive role in ensuring the vaccination of its workforce. 

Leadership for Overcoming Operational Challenges 

When the lockdown was announced last year, no one had even a glimpse of what lay ahead. AceInotec was determined to ensure that all its employees and their families are not affected. Though the company was not operational, we ensured that every employee received salaries on time until the company reopened. 

For an MSME company like AceInotec, making the company operational was the only way of survival. For the first 15 days after the first lockdown was announced on March 24th 2020, the company was inoperational, as only essential services were allowed during the period. Upon receiving approval from state government authorities, from April 09th 2021, we started our operations again, however, with only five people from the management itself out of 200 people strong workforce. 

We, at the management, decided to run the production at the shopfloor without risking the lives of the employees. We wanted to make sure that at least some amount of money was pouring in from our customers, which would help us in running the company. When the whole Peenya industrial area was not vibrating, we believe we were the first one around this place to start our operations and slowly had people coming in. From 9 April to 17 May 2020, we had around 30 people to run the operations. Till July, we had a difficult time with financial instability, shortage of workforce and lack of an ecosystem required to run the operations.

Although only 30 people were on the shop floor, we made sure that all the employees, who were at home, were also paid their salaries equally and timely. Till July 2020, we had a tough time in operations, however, we stood with the confidence that we will come back as we had a big contract in our hands. It was an indirect supply to the Ministry of Defence, India. 

We were about to start this project, and this project would go for 8-12 months, but the lockdown was announced, putting everything to a standstill. But we had to start our operations and supply these components, as more than business it was a passion to supply to the Indian defence. This passion helped us imbibe this pride in our team also and channelise the energy of the team which was required in such a project to start the operations and continue at any cost. 

We were able to push the team to be the best and we were able to manage our performance until July 2020. From July 2020, things were getting adjusted to the 'New Normal' and we were able to cover the losses during April –July within the August to March period. 
In fact, despite difficult times, last year was the best time in terms of the turnover for AceInotec. In 2020-2021, AceInotec recorded a turnover of 60 crores. Compared to the turnover in 2019-20, the turnover almost doubled. 
This happened because of the passion and leadership that we had. We knew we were facing a difficult time, but we made sure that we did not fall. We told our team that we are here to perform, we did it and the result was shown in the turnover.

Leadership in Community Care 

When the second wave arrived and the lockdown started in Bangalore, AceInotec faced more struggle than the first wave because the covid situation inside AceInotec got alarming.. This triggered a panic more than it was in the first wave. We have been struggling in the months of April and May and it has made the company not perform so well in the beginning of a new financial year against our visions to set up the group of companies “ Chilli Composite and OraliaH”

As production and sales dipped, the only thing that has been running in our mind is somehow we should be getting all our employees, their families vaccinated and our ecosystem including our suppliers vaccinated. Once the vaccination is done, we will get a psychological advantage as well to go forward and come to work without issues.

When the company does it is again added advantage for the relationship and bonding that is between a company and the employees. We made sure that we are doing this vaccination in our facility. 

We have arranged vaccination first for all our managers because we wanted all our managers to come back to work first before they could ask their team members to come. Being a manager if you ask a member to come without coming to the office yourself, it sets a bad precedence. Gradually we were able to get our entire employee to get vaccinated. We got almost 580 people vaccinated including our employees and their families and our suppliers. 

With this first vaccination, we see that the people are confident and the binding between the management and employees is stronger. We are seeing that we are giving this as a service from our side. Two months down the line we have to organise a second vaccination drive also. 

AceInotec does not focus only on the employees but their families also and the suppliers, focusing on the community.

Why Industry Should Display Leadership 

Indian manufacturers should also see this as a responsibility towards the community. A company progresses not just for the machinery and technologies it has but for the team which performs well because it performs with dedication. So, the manufacturers must take care of your employees to take care of you and if you are not doing it now then there may not be a better opportunity to do it.

Every industry has to make use of this opportunity to take care of their employees and their families so that the relationship is strengthened and it is going to help the employees, the company and the company stakeholders.

In business, the two important factors for survival and growth are RELATIONSHIP & CAPABILITY. The relationship between the Customer and Supplier, the relationship between the Management of the Supplier and the employees, the relationship between Supplier and their supply chain companies- are all very important. If this relationship is maintained well, this helps take a lot of decisions on time, every time.   

At the same time Capability of the team to deliver what the customers want is significant for growth. The manufacturing company should build the right capability in the team right from narrowing down on the right team in the hiring process. As management, our main job is to hire the right A player. The definition of A player in simple words, you don’t need to tell them what to do, he/ she will tell the management what to do to execute the work better. He/ she will not just limit with the responsibility given; they rather take additional responsibility.

More importantly, A player would love to work with another A player, so they will automatically form a team of A-players. All that we need to do as management is to help the team perform up to their potential, we need to protect the team and need to take care of our employees so that they realise that they are working with the right company.

AceInotec has shown leadership in this area and from where we were two years back, the dedication and effort of every employee at AceInotec have helped the company prosper.