RESILIENCE ON DISPLAY

Rizwan Sajan Founder and Chairman of Danube Group

The Danube group has transformed from its modest beginnings over 25 years ago to one that employs over 3300 people across 50 locations in over 9 countries. Rizwan Sajan, Founder and Chairman of Danube Group, who has been ‘ranked 7th among Top 100 Indian leaders in the UAE’, has been instrumental as Founder and Chairman in building his group of companies into a formidable market leader in the region for Building Materials. In this interview with Smart SMB, he elaborates on how the group has continued to keep it Business as usual in the midst of the pandemic while following all safety guidelines

How has Danube responded to the challenges of the pandemic outbreak in terms of managing operations?

Our company has been operational with our building materials vertical running at full tilt since it fell in the list of the businesses authorized in the region to operate partially if not completely when the lockdown was imposed in the beginning. Although, we were exempted from the restrictions of the lockdown, we tried to keep as lesser number of people outside as possible, asking them to go places only if it was absolutely necessary. While in offices, strict instructions were cascaded down the hierarchy of all of the departments to use the precaution kits, consisting of gloves, masks and sanitizers to be handed out to all of the employees and anyone entering our office premises with thermal scanners and instructions of social distancing being in place. So, following these measures, we had made sure that our building material vertical ran without a hitch to ensure full productivity.

Are there Danube staff working from home?

We have allowed 70 percent of our staff to start coming to office with remaining working from home. Considering the easing of lockdown happening in the world nowadays, we could enjoy the leeway of letting more number of people come to work, but we are still refraining from doing so. The more we could contribute to the containment of this virus, the better.

How are safety precautions being met at the warehouse and office facilities?

Firstly, people are thermally scanned and observed by guards at the gate to check if they are wearing masks and gloves before they enter the offices and warehouse facilities. There are instructions at prominent places to remind people of social distancing measures. Disposable wipes, masks and sanitizers are also being distributed among the workforce from time to time. Our employees are relying more on digital meetings even if they have to communicate with someone present in the office at the same time, adding more to the safety factor inside the facilities from the virus.

Our Danube home’s division is following a strict procedure when it comes to the logistical arrangements of delivering products from its warehouses to its customers. Different personal protective equipment, covering the bodies from head to toe, are worn by workers at the time of delivery of the products at customer’s place and its shipment from warehouse. Other than that, all of the products are disinfected as well before their movement to any place. How was business impacted and do you expect a return to a more positive trend soon? Is this already happening - can you mention with respect to all markets you address? Our businesses were impacted like every other Business out there. But, building materials vertical of our conglomerate was still functioning as it fell in the list of the businesses authorized by the government to operate partially if not completely when the lockdown was imposed in the beginning. Due to this leniency allowed for the building materials businesses, home interiors décor vertical and real estate division of our conglomerate were working by extension. Our online sales through e-commerce also spiked during these times and since the wide scope of vision of the leaders of the region is known to keep the market always booming and dynamic, we are definitely expecting an upward trend in the economy around the corner.

Do you intend to keep a percentage of your workforce in work from home mode as so many companies globally seem to be considering, at least some of the backend staff?

"Our online sales through e-commerce has seen a spike during these times and since the wide scope of vision of the leaders of the region always keeps the markets booming and dynamic, we are definitely expecting an upward trend in the economy around the corner."

We are constantly keeping a tab on what is being communicated by the government for how much workforce is allowed to work from home and office. We have allowed 70% of our employees to start coming so far and rest are working from home. So, there are some people that are working as backend staff now.

What were the collaborative technologies you relied on to keep the operations on as normal as possible? Did you initiate any new technology deployments to beat the challenges ?

We had been using Microsoft teams, cisco webex, zoom, video conferencing tools, VPN’s and other IT tools to keep our productivity in place. On top of that, we were conducting virtual trainings of employees as well, using these tools with some virtual motivational sessions to keep our employees happy and motivated all the time and because of the shift towards e-commerce during these times, our online sales has compensated for absence of footfall in our store across UAE. So, Technology has been really great to us.