Over 90 per cent of the Indian business leaders opined that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to improve crisis management capabilities, says a survey by consultancy firm PwC India.
About 59 per cent of the Indian business admitted having adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, said the PwC's Global Crisis Survey 2021- India Insights.
The survey also revealed that over 80 per cent of India's business leaders have already invested in technology in the aftermath of the pandemic.
In India, it added, business leaders were substantially more confident than global leaders about their ability to evaluate the lessons of the pandemic and put them into action. "92 per cent of India organisations said they were 'confident' vs just 75 per cent of global leaders," the survey said.
The responses of India's business leaders were largely in line with the overall results of PwC's Global Crisis Survey 2021, showing only minor areas of significant divergence in views and insights.
About the survey, PwC said more than 2,800 business leaders around the world shared company data and personal insights into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the future of enterprise resilience.
"With 99 respondents representing Indian organisations, our report offers an analysis of how of how our business community is responding and how leaders are applying the lessons of this era to prepare for the next disruption," it said.
As per the survey, the top 5 priorities cited by business leaders going forward are, include accelerate transformations in organisational areas identified during the crisis (99 per cent); adapt strategy to respond nimbly to major interruptions and implement changes (96 per cent); and implement after-action review process to assess response to future incidents and crisis (89 per cent).
The other two are: Actively work on increasing resilience in the near future (86 per cent) and make changes to corporate strategy in response to the pandemic (51 per cent).
Puneet Garkhel, Partner and Leader, Forensics Services, PwC India, said that operations and supply chain, finance and liquidity, and workforce are the three areas in which Indian businesses experienced "significant" or "critical" impact owing to the pandemic.
"Indian businesses that have survived and even thrived, through this period have several significant foundational strengths in common with the most critical being a dedicated crisis response team with a fit-for-purpose response strategy, aligned to their organisation's goals and purpose," said Garkhel.
According to the survey, another key focus for business leaders across all sectors was employee wellbeing - 90 per cent agreed (58 per cent strongly) that their response to the crisis took into account the physical and emotional needs of their employees.
