Not all's blue for firms, some tech companies do robust business amid lockdown

One of India’s oldest biscuit makers, Parle-G recently announced that they have clocked their highest sales in the company’s history during the COVID-19 induced lockdown. In a market where start-ups are facing a bleak winter in funding, leading industrialist, Anand Mahindra announced on Twitter that he has invested US $1 million (₹7.5 crore) in a start-up, Hapramp, which works in the social platform and technology space.

Short video sharing platforms Roposo, an Indian version of Tiktok too saw a significant surge in usage in the wake of the lockdown. Consumer robotics firm, Milagrow, which recently deployed its floor cleaning robots in major hospitals such as AIIMS, has witnessed a 10-fold increase in the demand for this product. In a press release, the firm claims to have witnessed a 15-20 per cent rise in demand for various categories of its cleaning robots and humanoid robots since mid-April.

In the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis, some companies, especially in the tech space in the field of education, health, gaming, content generation, essential retail trade, agriculture and food supply, are beating the COVID blues and experiencing robust business growth.

Take the case of Bangalore-based software firm, Trellisys, whose revenues doubled, largely due to their signature digital publishing platform Papertrell. This platform enables publishers to take their products online, make it engaging, interactive and monetize them.

Launched eight years ago in partnership with an American firm, Papertrell today powers direct-to-consumer initiatives for leading publishers such as Penguin Random House, Hatchette UK, John Murray (Jane Austen’s publishers) and independent book stores in the UK and USA too. And, has developed products like a digital baby recipe book and an interactive app for colouring books etc., for other publishers.

“Before COVID-19, most publishers were dragging their feet to digitalize. The digital division in a publishing company was always side-stepped and relegated to a corner. Today, the situation has completely reversed,” observes Arun Benty, co-founder and director, business development, Trellisys. Companies are now chasing us to get more innovative with the digital aspect of their business, he points out.

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A key example has been India’s most recognizable comic brand, Amar Chitra Katha. In March, once the lockdown came into effect, the company approached Papertrell to move their treasure trove of comics online. They made it accessible to readers through a subscription model.

“Amar Chitra Katha opened a digital store as well after their print pipeline was disrupted during COVID,” explains Benty. The collapse of supply chains and dipping revenues are prompting publishing firms to focus more on digital.

“Frankly, the pandemic has just accelerated the move towards digital, which would have happened in a few years’ time. It has hit publishers very hard, they are bleeding and this is forcing them to move in a different direction,” says Benty, for whom, COVID-19 turned out to be the proverbial silver lining in a dark cloud.

However, on the flip side this transition has given publishers a new lease of life as they have gone global, he says.

Here’s an example: Unable to bring out the weekly print edition of their children’s newspaper, Robin Age, the CEO Riddhima Arora, quickly transferred the January to March copies online after the lockdown. Immediately, their digital readership surged with nearly 7,000 people signing up to access their archives for free.

“We are also getting enquiries from Indian expats around the world,” says Arora. “The pandemic forced us to think differently. Though, we will continue to print, we plan to invest more in promoting our digital version since we acknowledge the big demand from our readers,” says Arora. Robin Age, which has a print circulation of 27,000, is a vibrant, colourful cocktail of news, articles on Indian mythology and history, science, culture, environment, kiddie puzzles, activities and interactive projects.

Gaming companies in India too benefited from the epidemic. “The gaming industry has got a big boost and made a two-year leap in the past two months,” says Afsar Ahmed, founder of Gameberry.  Usage and downloads amplified in many online gaming platforms such as Paytm First Games, WinZo Games during the lockdown

Ahmed claims that the number of active users on their multiplayer board game Parchisi increased from 1 million to 5 million.

“We saw a 400 per cent increase in our growth. It changed our perspective and we started to think big,” he adds. Though the number of downloads, which had gone up to 30 million, started dropping in May, Parchisi, which has a huge following in Spain, has retained a large percentage of the users they had gained during the lockdown.

To keep their users hooked and stick with the game, Gameberry is currently adding more value to Parchisi and to its second popular game  – Ludo Star. And, the company is on a hiring spree actively recruiting designers, developers, game artists, programmers and software engineers.

The current situation in the entertainment space has unleashed a big demand for animation-related content, say tech entrepreneurs. “Animation content is sought after not just in gaming but to create digital ads, videos and OTT content,” points out Ahmed. Many OTT companies have approached animation companies to make short animation films for them.

If you have a specialized skill, get online to earn a few bucks, seems to be the mantra in pandemic India. So, you have individual professionals, from nutritionists to podcasters and stand-up comedians offering their expertise online through video classes at a price. For example, famous stand-up comedian, Aditi Mittal’s online comedy workshop, #Crashburnlearn, to teach on how to make people laugh is priced at ₹5,500. It has been booked till the end of June. Yoga Mission in Chennai is offering online one-on-one sessions charging ₹6,000 for twelve classes.

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The sector expected to be the most impacted however by the pandemic for a long time to come will be Indian education, say tech experts. Even as senior classes have gone completely online for now, Indian edtech startups like Vedantu, Byjus and others, offering a slew of solutions to either support school curriculum or offer comprehensive software platforms to help educators to run schools and teach, have thrived during the pandemic.

Next Education, a B2B ed-tech company, has recently launched an advanced Next Learning Platform to help academic institutions to transit their operations online. It is a comprehensive, integrated learning platform that comprises ERP, LMS including live lectures, assessment, content access at home and leading state boards’ content in a number of languages.

According to Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO and Co-founder of Next Education, the pandemic is increasing opportunities to improve school infrastructure across the K12 and higher education sectors.

“In the past two months, a 100 per cent window of opportunity has opened for the edtech sector. In our case, we have had schools positively responding to our new learning management platform. Today, private schools have already got onto the bandwagon of e-learning and smart classrooms. But, the pandemic is going to result in a 360-degrees transformation in education with digital learning making the process more transparent and accountable,” he says.

Ralhan believes this drive to go digital is not temporary, especially in education. “It is going to bring a fundamental transformation in the way education is being offered. Until now, some schools have been providing poor quality education and need to be made accountable,” he points out.

The Indian Internet infrastructure however may not be ready for the paradigm shift to online learning or for more interactive, engaging digital solutions but the pandemic has strongly driven home this point to companies: digitalize or become obsolete!