TKM Extends Support to Partners, Announces Unique Sustenance Packages for its Dealer Network

In its determined endeavors to counter the repercussions brought about by COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown that followed, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) today, announced Dealer Support Package - ‘COVID Package’ for its associates in order to support and protect their interests. This unique package will provide necessary assistance to the dealer partners to overcome the lockdown phase, ensuring their safety and wellbeing during these uncertainties.

The dealer support package called the “COVID Package” is designed after careful evaluation of individual dealerships’ customized internal processes and fixed cost thus allowing them optimum utilization of the benefits. The primary objective of the package is to ensure liquidity to well sustain the business during the lockdown thus protecting dealer partners for approximately 38 to 75 days based on individual dealer overheads by giving cash flow support that will help them sail through these perilous times.

The COVID package ranges from immediate settlement of any dealer claims to inventory interest subsidy for vehicles in dealer stock and spare parts payment deferment amongst host of other supports. Besides, TKM is working with its finance partners for a one-time reduction of inventory funding interest at this unprecedented situation.

Expressing his views on this initiative, Mr. Naveen Soni, Senior Vice President, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “At Toyota, we believe that our stakeholders, dealer partners and their employees are the most important assets and their safety and wellbeing is of utmost importance to us. This pandemic has financially impacted all our dealerships across India because cash inflow has become zero. While the Government has announcement several relief measures including moratoriums, we have also studied the fixed cost expenses of dealerships and have come up with a relief package called the COVID package to assist in maintaining liquidity to improve cash flow. We hope to emerge stronger from this crisis, together.”

TKM has been taking effective measures to battle the ramifications of the outbreak with the safety and security of its stakeholders as a cornerstone in its decision making. TKM wholeheartedly appreciates the measures taken by the Government and will continue to support them by implementing impactful initiatives to deal with this crisis.

OYO Partners with Apollo Hospitals to Offer Support for Quarantine Facilities Across India

Highlights

* Partners with Apollo Hospitals in the fight against Covid-19 to develop isolation rooms in OYO hotels, under medical supervision in 6 cities as part of Apollo’s Project Stay I (Stay Isolated)
* Owing to SBI & HUL’s CSR efforts, Apollo Hospitals will provide 50% of category 1 rooms of OYO for free of cost to those who cannot afford
* OYO also offers accommodation to frontline medical staff, aircrew, corporates, tourists, PGs etc stranded in the nationwide lockdown

OYO, one of the world’s leading hotel chains today announced that it has been working closely with Apollo Hospitals to develop and support accommodation requirements of suspected Covid19 patients requiring quarantine/self-isolation. This is part of Project Stay I (Stay isolated) where Apollo hospitals are partnering with select hotel brands to create isolation rooms in hotels with light medical supervision for quarantine and creating a barrier before people come into the hospitals. The objective is to create isolation and quarantine facilities away from the main hospitals in cities across the country and reduce the burden on hospitals providing acute care.

As part of the partnership envisaged, OYO is offering sanitised beds and facilities in certain Covid19 exclusive hotels it's identified within its network in the proximity of Apollo Hospitals in 6 cities namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata for the purposes of self-quarantine and isolation for suspected Covid19 patients that require medical observation and supervision.  Starting with hotels in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, Delhi is the next city that OYO will be assisting Apollo Hospitals in.

As more and more private hospitals and institutions join the fight against coronavirus in India, Apollo Hospitals and OYO are helping develop safe, hygienic quarantine facilities that act as necessary extensions of hospitals and support the requirements of the health ministry and medical fraternity at this time. The pricing of this has been developed in consultation with Apollo Hospitals so that the pay-per-use facilities are both affordable and accessible while assuring the requisite medical care. SBI & HUL are also directing their CSR efforts to support 50% stays in category 1 rooms i.e. OYO for those patients that cannot afford it. This includes the cost of lodging, medical care, WIFI. The rooms will be booked through Apollo Hospitals and will not be available for booking through the OYO app so as to ensure pre-booking medical consultation.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO said, “We want to work with state governments and private institutions to problem solve and assist in the fight against COVID-19. Our partnership with Apollo Hospitals has been developed to ensure we utilise capacity where possible to create highly sanitised pay per use quarantine facilities under the guidance and supervision of medical professionals. This is an unprecedented situation which requires all of us to find new ways to work together and rise to the occasion. We are thankful for the support of SBI, HUL, our asset owners and frontline teams that are making this possible”

The company is focusing on a two-pronged strategy to minimise the possibility of infection and maximise social distancing and hygiene. Certain hotels are being identified to partner with hospitals for setting up safe, pay per use quarantine facilities. Certain others are focused on providing safe shelter to local and foreign tourists and travellers who are stranded in cities owing to the lockdown.

The government of India on March 24, released the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines for the 21 day nationwide lockdown, which recognises under point 7, that while hospitality services will be suspended, the following exceptions will be made:

* Hotels, homestays, lodges and motels which are accommodating tourists and persons stranded due to lockdown, medical and emergency staff, sea and aircrew.

* Establishments used / earmarked for quarantine facilities

Dr. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group said, “Many families in India have 4-5 members and most of them share the same facilities and toilets, this fails the purpose of self-isolation if one the family members is at high risk of COVID-19 and is advised to do so. Project Stay I will not only reduce the load on the healthcare system by creating clean, comfortable isolation and quarantine facilities for individuals who have no need for active medical intervention but also provide a solution to such families.The model is envisaged to have a combination of self-paying and CSR funded customers. The purpose of partnering with multiple facility brands is to ensure that all socio- economic segments of society have an equal opportunity to avail these services. A project of this magnitude needs several like-minded partners across the supply chain to come on board and we are thankful to our partners OYO Hotels & Homes, HUL, and SBI  and others for their support which has made this initiative possible. Owing to SBI & HUL’s generosity, 50% of category 1 rooms (OYO) would be made available for free of cost to those who cannot afford.”

OYO has sprung into action and as a company is continuing to make an outreach to relevant state governments as well as authorities to understand how some of its properties can be leveraged for pay per use quarantine facilities. The company has also reached out to corporates and is keen to support the lodging requirements of hospital staff, air and sea crew etc who are at the frontline of India’s fight against coronavirus through a combination of OYO hotels or OYO LIFE offerings. (OYO LIFE- is OYO’s managed long term rental housing product)

The company has set up a helpline to take in the requests (oyo_care@oyorooms.com) from relevant organisations and determine how best to support them.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO said, “To continue the fight against Coronavirus, OYO stands committed to support people  stranded in other cities, foreigners stranded here, people out of their hometowns, paying guests with no accommodation, MNC employees in another city & everyone in need. A 21 Day lockdown is the right decision in the interest of greater good. OYO will do its best to keep its doors open for all those who need these during these testing times.”

Recently, in the United States, OYO offered a free stay to medical first responders who are helping Americans fight against covid19.  Ivanka Trump & the US Vice President, Mike Pence too tweeted to generate awareness. Ritesh added, “Medical first responders are working tirelessly for us. In these tough times, OYO along with our hotel partners & OYOpreneurs want to do the right thing. We stand #TogetherApart to assist our frontliners against coronavirus.”

One Life India Provides Ration Hampers to Daily Wage Warners in Association with NGO ' Yes We Can'

Daily Wage Earners are the most affected in the current situation by the lockdown because of Covid-19. 'Yes We Can' is working towards providing ration kits for daily wage earners affected by the lockdown. OneLife is preventive healthcare company aimed at improving dietary solutions segregated across nutrition, wellness and beauty supplements and vitamins.

Gaurav Aggarwal, Founder of OneLife India & actor, close friend Nandish Singh Sandhu join hands with Yes We Can, to help in their efforts to reach maximum affected people, and appeal everyone to come forth and contribute too.

About One Life Nutriscience Pvt Ltd:
With almost four decades of experience in health, wellness, and nutrition, OneLife is incepted with the vision to enhance the everyday of life in today’s busy lifestyle. After all, we have one life, live it right.

With everyday routine, stress, lifestyle and eating habits, many of our nutritional needs are unmet or deficient. With One Life supplements we ensure we cater to your daily requirements for vitamins and nutrients. A supplement for all your requirements, be it bone health, or beautiful hair and nails, daily energy or overall strength and wellness, One Life products with the authentic experience and knowledge of nutritionists and food engineers coupled with the ancient knowledge of local doctors and farmers, bring to you a variety of natural foods, supplements and herbal infusions to mitigate and enhance the quality of life.

Could Blockchain be the Serendipitous Panacea to Covid-19 Pandemic?

By Mohua Sengupta, Co-founder, Ventures

In November 2018, purely out of my keen interest in Blockchain and a little influence from my daughter’s MUN (Model United Nations) preparation in WHO committee, I had written an article, ‘Unleashing Blockchain for cross-border surveillance & reporting of Communicable Diseases.’ It was pure research at that point and seemed like a perfect use case for Blockchain. Today this COVID-19 crisis suddenly makes me wonder, that if we had a blockchain based real time reporting of Communicable Diseases, maybe we could have avoided a pandemic?

Biggest challenges for Communicable Diseases

There are two major challenges with communicable diseases.

First in today’s globalized world, communicable diseases are extremely hard to contain.  They spread like wildfire and moves across political and geographical boundaries at ease, infecting people across countries.
Secondly, there is a huge social stigma around Communicable Diseases even today.  Man by nature is a social animal and the idea of being separated from fellow human beings is scary to all.  So there is a tendency to hide. This tendency is further aggravated by the fact that most people do not respect privacy.  Maintaining privacy in case of sharing information about communicable diseases is of utmost importance.


How did COVID 19 start, spread and then become a pandemic?

While there are various opinions about this matter and many conspiracy theories are floating around, lets for now just consider the proven cause.  The disease started from the wet markets of Wuhan, China, where live and dead animals and birds are sold daily.  The virus most likely has originated from Bats, but since bats are not sold in that market, the scientists think that the bat must have bitten a bird or animal that got sold in the Wuhan wet market. 

This much we have seen many a times when any new disease hit us.  But then what’s different with this?  How has this virus brought the world to a standstill?  We have seen it’s more dangerous cousins, MARS, SARS etc., but they didn’t bring the world to a standstill.  Then why Covid 19?  The difference is that it’s very highly contagious, much more than its close cousins.  So when one person got infected, he started infecting many in a day and each one of them infected that many and very soon there were thousands of people in Wuhan who were infected.  Since the symptoms are typically like simple flu, people continued to travel and China missed sending the warning to the rest of the world and did not restrict travel to and fro.  So, international travelers kept on coming to China and vice versa.  More than a month went by before the world woke up to realize that this is a serious threat and by then the disease has already spread to many countries like Italy, Spain, UK, US, Iran and a few others too.

And then while the news of Wuhan epidemic as well as the challenges in the other countries came out, travel was not restricted.  It took a couple of more weeks for the travel restrictions to start and by then the virus has travelled to 20 odd countries.  Now the world really wakes up and every country starts taking measures to do lockdown by restricting travel and also taking various other measures to reduce spreading of the virus within the country.  But by then it’s a pandemic!  The entire world gets introduced to a very different challenge, business suffers, stock market tanks across the world, many people lose their jobs, not to speak of the enormous loss of life and pressure on the healthcare system of all affected countries.

Could Blockchain have helped the situation?

As we all know, with Blockchain we can share any transaction / information, real time, between relevant parties present as nodes in the chain, in a secure and immutable fashion.  In this case, had there been a blockchain where WHO, Health Ministry of each country and may be even relevant nodal hospitals of each country, were connected, sharing real time information, about any new communicable disease, then the world might have woken up much earlier.   We might have seen travel restrictions given sooner, quarantining policies set sooner and social distancing implemented faster.  And may be fewer countries would have got impacted. 

What every country is doing now fighting this pandemic, would have been restricted to fewer countries and in a much smaller scale.  The usage of a Blockchain to share the information early on, might have saved the world a lot of pain.

Why Blockchain?

The top five advantages of Blockchain technology are:

Greater transparency
Enhanced security
Improved traceability
Increased efficiency and speed
Reduced cost

Aren’t they all supremely important for reporting cross-border Communicable Disease cases?

The world had not seen anything like this Covid 19 pandemic before.  Today we need to take a hard look at the reporting infrastructure available for communicable diseases, both technology and regulations and improve upon that, such that we do not need to face another pandemic like this in the future.

But of course Blockchain, in this case, like any technology is not a solution, it’s just an enabler.  An enabler that would ensure the security and efficiency needed for sharing something so sensitive. Finally it would depend on the goodwill of people and governments.

Wish we come out of this crisis soon and as unscathed as possible!

Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship readies all NSTIs to be used as quarantine centres in preparedness of COVID-19

MSDE will Provide a List of Around 1 Lakh Skilled Professional Along with List of 2000 Health Care Trainers

As a part of the Government’s preparedness to fight the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has decided to make available  all National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) and their hostels across the country for conversion into quarantine/ isolation facilities. The decision was taken by the Ministry to align its efforts with the Centre in preparedness for the pandemic that has caused tens of thousands of deaths globally. India has so far managed to control the spread of the infection and a nationwide lockdown was implemented last week to encourage social distancing among people.

MSDE has also provided the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare a list of around one lakh personnel who have been trained in healthcare skills through various programmes under the Skill India Mission. Trained in various job roles, these candidates will boost the efforts to contain the spread and treatment and care of infected people in the new quarantine/ isolation/ hospital facilities being set up.

In addition, a list of 2000 health care trainers and more than 500 health care assessors have also been shared with MoHFW.

Further, the personnel of the Ministry has also decided to contribute at least minimum one day salary to the PM CARES fund to aid the Government’s efforts to fight the corona virus pandemic.

Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship said the addition of NSTIs will help district and state administrations in treating those infected by the virus by providing an alternative for hospitals and health centres. “In view of the global emergency caused by the unprecedented spread of the Novel Coronavirus, the Skill Development Ministry will provide every possible support to the Central Government in fighting this pandemic. We have requested all Regional Directors of NSTIs to fully cooperate with State Government authorities to help them meet the requirement of facilities as and when it arises.In addition, the State Governments can also use the premises of ITIs for the same .”

Run by the Directorate General of Training (DGT), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) are premier institutes that provides training in specialised skills across its spread of training centers and hostels in the country. The nearly one lakh candidates who will aid in emergency and isolation work in the battle against COVID-19 have been trained in various job roles. 

cult.fit Launches #MovementForMovement Challenge to Donate to PM CARES Across India

For every person taking the challenge and completing 12 days of online workout, cure.fit will contribute ₹ 100 to the Prime Ministers COVID Relief Fund

With all movement and activity completely ceased under this lockdown due to the Coronavirus outbreak, more Indians now stand a risk of developing issues that stem from not moving enough or exercising enough. This may lead to a rise in illnesses due to sedentary lifestyles that may, in turn, put unwanted pressure on the health care system in these unprecedented times. To raise awareness of this issue and make India move- starting from Friday 27th March, cult.fit launched the #MovementForMovement campaign. Under this challenge, a user has to first accept the challenge via cult.live and work out for any 12 days between 27th March-15th April, 2020 . For every challenge completion - a contribution of ₹ 100 will be made to PM CARES Fund by cure.fit to help COVID191 relief efforts.

What is cult.live?

cult.live is a group fitness class led by star Cult trainers, that lets you experience the energy from the comfort of your home and work out with thousands of others. It is FREE for anyone to join from anywhere on the cure.fit app. Currently, these LIVE classes are being  offered across fitness formats like strength, HRX, dance fitness and yoga on all seven days of the week. These classes are safe for all types of users whether beginner, intermediate or advanced and allows the user to track real-time performance data and even challenge family and friends.

Use these free cult live online classes for 12 days on the cure.fit app and complete the #MovementForMovement challenge to make your contribution.

Automotive OEMs and Car Dealers Must Improve Online Sales Models to Mitigate a Corona Virus-Related Sales Slump

To mitigate a likely slump in car sales and to ensure employee and customer safety during the coronavirus pandemic, automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and car dealerships must transition to simple, end-to-end online selling and services, according to Gartner, Inc.

COVID-19 containment measures are forcing the closure of car showrooms in many countries, and this is also increasing the requirement for a full and effective online purchase process. “Currently, most OEMs and car dealerships in major markets including the U.S., China, Germany and the U.K. don’t offer a real end-to-end online sales channel that optimizes the purchase process,” said Pedro Pacheco, senior research director at Gartner. “OEMs and car dealerships must set up direct sales platforms on which users can buy a car in just three clicks and have it delivered to their home. This model should be used for both car configuration and inventory.”

Gartner recommends investing in augmented- and virtual-reality technologies to give online shoppers a more comprehensive experience when specifying car requirements. Additionally, investing in an advanced artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot could assist by answering a broad range of questions from customers. OEMs and car dealerships should also ensure complete price transparency to avoid pricing issues and lengthy negotiations, which frustrate buyers.

Although many consumers will be hesitant about purchasing a car in the present circumstances, OEMs and car dealerships still need to offer more flexibility. “OEMs and dealerships could consider a digital platform that offers a usage-based subscription model which enables the consumer to choose a car, with the freedom to exit the contract at very short notice,” said Mr. Pacheco.

In addition, OEMs and car dealerships need to consider enhancing their after-sales strategy. They should create an online hub where users can purchase parts, set up maintenance appointments and find all the information on “contactless” after-sales services. With these options, customers will have no physical contact with any other person, and these services can cover service booking, vehicle collection and drop-off, roadside assistance and online payment. This is a model that car dealerships and repair shops can also adopt to continue serving customers in the future.

“Speed of change is crucial for OEMs and car dealerships’ survival in times of confinement and insecurity,” said Mr. Pacheco. “Given factory and showroom closures, it is essential that car makers draw up a strong online order book to ensure that, once factories and showrooms reopen, they can quickly rebound financially."

Gartner clients can learn more in the report “COVID-19: Technology Can Mitigate Car Sales Slump.”

Additional analysis on the actions CIOs and IT leaders should take to remain resilient during coronavirus business disruptions is available in the Gartner webinar “Pandemic Preparedness Requires Strong Business Continuity Management.”

Learn more about how to lead organizations through the disruption of coronavirus in the Gartner coronavirus resource center, a collection of complimentary Gartner research and webinars to help organizations respond, manage and prepare for the rapid spread and global impact of COVID-19.