Snehangshu Ganguly: We are doing our best to safeguard our employees

What has been the impact of Covid-19 on your business thus far?
A business by nature is rewarding as well as vulnerable to risks, especially business of the size of ours. The key risks are economic and operational. Currently we are hit by both. The situation is out of our control and we, as employers, are trying our best to safeguard our employees from all possible aspects. We are currently not focusing on gauging the financial aspect.     

In the short term, how are you assessing the risks and planning for the possible impact?
Operational and reputation will take a hit. Products like labels and packaging materials like blister cards are our biggest challenge. We hope our clients will be with us through this. However, meeting the backlog due to shut down will require a lot of planning and experience. Planning will only be possible once we receive some communication from the government on the possible dates when operations can be resumed.

Some businesses have acted, asking staff to work from home, doing daily temperature checks, distributing critical tasks across offices, and restricting travel. What steps have you undertaken?
The business we are in involves mainly machines and shopfloor. Other than downloading artworks, designing and sharing those for approvals, we have nothing much that can be done from home. We have asked all our employees to take adequate rest and to take care of their families. Travelling is a strict no, and we have followed this from the last week of February. The last international travel was for Euro Shop and domestic travel was barred from 13 March 2020.

How is your company staying in touch with your partners / customers?
We are in touch over phone and emails with our partners and customers.

Do you invest in health care, and is there a robust system in place?
We have invested in health care. We have tie-up with well known hospitals and all the employees are covered under ESI and group medical insurance where check up once a year is mandatory.

We have proper hand wash stations, eye wash basins, medical backups, drinking water with water portability test done every six months, personal protective equipment such as gloves, earplugs, goggles, masks, etc. We have empanelled doctors who pay a monthly visit on fourth Saturday of the month from five to seven pm. We are sure that this system is not robust; we will be grateful if someone can guide us more on the same.

Confluence of creativity and technology will be the key to crafting a successful future in print. One creative print project which can make a difference you?
Creativity without technology is inefficient and technology without creativity is unimaginative. Creativity and technology put together creates imagination. The print fraternity have experienced a sea-change with the digital revolution that took place over the years. The competition will become more fierce and clients more demanding and craving for innovative ideas. The only way to meet it will be a proper understanding and segregation of clients, keeping the future outlook, opportunities and threats in mind. We are still in a stage where we are evaluating a number of projects, yet not finalised anything as of now.

One suggestion for the government?
We will request the government to help us build robust medical facilities at every locality which will take care of the people residing there.