Posted by : Sanjoy Sanyal How Cleantech Entrepreneurs are working through the Corona crisis.
We, entrepreneurs are hard-wired to be optimistic. We understood this again when six of us met in a virtual focus group hosted by our common investor Caspian in the last week of May. Our factories were just starting after several weeks of lockdown. Managing supplies and logistics was a nightmare. We were all worried on what we needed to do if one of our employees tested positive. Shibam Das, the co-founder of Atomberg Technology, which manufactures energy-efficient fans, stopped counting the challenges we are facing after a few seconds. He summed as only an engineer could: “the challenges are infinite.” And yet, Neha Juneja, the founder of Greenway Grameen Infra, which manufactures efficient cookstoves for the rural market, set the tone for the meeting when she laughed and said “for founders this has actually been a productive time. We have time to test new ideas.”
We are still focusing on sales
There were three things that we were doing to mitigate the risks of depressed demand.
Help customers understand the health benefits of clean technology.
Madhusudhan Rapole, the founder of Oorja Technologies, which provides efficient heating and cooling solutions for commercial and industrial buildings, said that only now customers were willing to acknowledge that the reduction of recirculation of air was an important benefit. His company had made two project proposals – one for a building in Noida and another for a shopping mall in Vizag – where temperature was maintained by circulating fresh air. Mainak Chakraborty, the co-founder of GPS Renewables, which makes biogas from urban waste, said that his customers were understanding that without managing waste “we would be dealing with another epidemic.”
Use the time to increase the pipeline and close business
Sachin Jain, the co-founder of Oriano Solar, which provides services to both Independent Power Producers and large corporates said the lockdown period has been “actually quite good”. His corporate clients had the time to discuss and negotiate on offerings and his team has closed a few contracts. It has also helped that the solar tenders from the Central Public Sector Units has not slowed down. He was hopeful: “If we get access to the sites by September we should still be able to commission by March”. Rapole agreed. “Now everybody has time. We have reached out to at least 20 architects and green building consultants. Earlier, we would have only 30 minutes with one or two people in their offices. Now we have had three times more time in each meeting with their entire and we have had detailed discussions.”
Expand product offerings, customer segments and sales
Venkat Rajaraman, the founder of Cygni Energy, which provides Direct Current systems for rural homes and batteries for electric vehicles has also developed a solar back-up for a ventilator that can be used in hospitals. Juneja said that they were lucky that they had shipped out a few containers to Zambia. Her colleagues were working on Zambian time to sell the stoves. If all went well, she could see a reasonable portion of her revenue coming from exports this year. Das said that while the sales of fans in retail shops was down significantly, sales through on-line channels had increased from the same time last year.
We are figuring out ways to manage implementation issues
Communicate clearly and honestly
Cygni had opened its factory in mid-May. Before it did so, Rajaraman and his team had consulted all the employees to develop safety procedures. Together the team came up with ideas on how to reduce touchpoints, manage sanitization and track employee and material movements. Das said that they had organized a virtual “town hall” where the management explained to all employees the sales and receivables figures of the company. They also communicated that there would be no layoffs or salary cuts. Collections had improved by 50% since then.
Increasing the resource base for implementation
Raju Datla, the co-founder of Argo Solar, which provides solar rooftop and solar pumping solutions said that they were implementing a project in Andhra Pradesh with the help of the customer. Rapole also uses workers of the main contractors of a construction site to implement his solutions. Chakraborty said they outsourced a lot of the actual construction. All of them had engineers at various locations so that travel risks are minimized.
Broadening options for managing supply chains
Both Juneja and Das said that they were trying to produce what they could and get it to warehouses at various locations. The idea was if logistics got disrupted in the region where their main factory was they would still be able to continue the business. Das and Rajaraman were also working on expanding the supplier base to de-risk operations.
There are no easy solutions
Like business founders across the world, these are unknown and uncertain times. The challenges are immense on all fronts. But it was clear from the discussions, that we were going to try whatever we could. We would re-use old tricks and learn new ones. This is also the time to learn from our peers as we work through the problems one at a time.
Madhusudhan Rapole, Mainak Chakraborty, Neha Juneja, Raju Datla, Shibam Das, Venkat Rajaraman. Our focus group meeting was hosted by Sanjoy Sanyal.