Pandemic business strategies by Mr. Ravikant, Founder of Elegance Enterprises

In the past few decades, more co-operative and integrated patterns were seen in the business sectors of India. While most businesses were flourishing hand in hand, time passed, and we saw conditions that inclined towards the interests of some businesses while in a few cases leading to market domination. The renowned multinational companies as well as the national companies now follow a self-directed warfare and focus primarily on capturing the market for long term profit instead of the initial concept of immediate profit gain.
 

The same remains true for the real estate industry as the years passed and with the current situation of COVID-19, it has inclined the business sector to aggressively work towards a more competitive war strategy. The initial long-term strategies that were planned have now become of lesser use, and companies are looking at a more aggressive and assertive set of strategies, in an attempt to survive in the rapidly changing market conditions.
 

In a Business Plan, there is a Goal to be achieved backed with a Short; Medium; and Long-Term plans and strategies to achieve the same. However, due to COVID and markets going in and out of lockdowns, the Real Estate Agency Businesses are unable to implement their initial long-term strategies as their revenues are not even close to their initial targets. So, in any unique situation like this, a Business needs to be in a Super Short-term Strategy which is more like a war situation, where:
 

• While COVID Cases are Low and there is no lockdown using an aggressive strategy to convince buyers to come on site and physical meetings and closures
 

• While COVID Cases are High and there is a lockdown, it is an assertive strategy when you convince the customers to use their home isolation time wisely by choosing a home through Virtual tours, online meetings etc.

While the situation of COVID cases and lockdown can change rapidly, business needs to be prepared to immediately change their strategy to suit the day when a move can be made towards closing deals. Real Estate is difficult to sell online. However, the current consumers who prefers doing all their research are still willing to take the decision to make their purchase online but for some customer a physical visit becomes a requirement before deciding to buy. In both the cases the above strategies work as you can do all your initial convincing during a lock down and take the final closures when the lock down rules are relaxed.
 

In all of the situations whether it’s a lockdown or not, businesses should make sure they are spending on marketing (either online, SMS, Mailers etc.) so that the momentum continues and they are ready with their sales pipeline when situation changes. A war is one when a great sense of attack and defense is planned on real time basis by keeping your Goal in Mind.

The evident shift in business strategies:
 

Digitalization of the real estate sector: As the demand for real estate is likely to increase, people also become extremely selective while concerning the same. During the pre COVID period, people could go on onsite visits to check the property themselves before investing, but the current situation of the pandemic has compelled the investors to stay indoors. The same applies for inventories and the Ready-to-move-in (RTMI) premium & luxury homes as people prefer a tangible approach before exploring any form of investing. However, as the market condition in the real estate sector changes, new initiatives come into force and thus makes the sector step forward to adapting to new conditions.
 

The real estate sector has adopted new tools for reaching out to their customers, initiating an innovative approach to avail the inventories/houses to customers through a virtual digital platform. Some of the top developers in the country were able to implement a digital platform to communicate with potential customers where they provided redesign in their approach for customer satisfaction. Leading developers who dominated to market started incorporating augmented reality, virtual tours, video- conferences with sales and marketing teams and real time status on project development etc. This initiative received a positive response and saw a few developers stand out from its competitors.
 

Aggressive business strategies: The Real Estate Industry has slowly begun to mature and regulate the market. To thrive in this changing market condition during the time of a pandemic, there has been an upward revision of prices, removal of previously available offers and marketing projects as high value. Some of the factors that helped them influence these strategies included availability of housing in specific locations, understanding the level of demand for housing according to location, the advantage of reduced rates on home loans from 7 percent to 5 percent added to the already existent demand in the real estate sector. An aggressive mode of business has been implemented by several businesses as a part of their strategy in an attempt to keep up with the rapidly changing environment of the real estate industry.
 

For the last few years, India has seen a rapid growth in the real estate sector. The business principles have greatly changed in the past decades with the significant rise of several developers in the market. The fight for more market share and implementation of various business strategies have shifted to a more self-centered approach, aggressive war strategies being mentionable. The co-operative and mutually beneficial schemes fail to extract profit as the market is shared with many developers; it eventually compels the companies to shift to a more self-serving mode of business to attract customers. Some apply business strategies to decrease the amount of money investors need to put into the market or real estate segment (a term known as ticket-sizes) such as affordable, premium, luxury or ultra-luxury properties and the prices for capturing the market. Either way the business sector now stands as war ground for the dealers.
 

Business strategies have changed drastically over time. The sector of business in real estate and its principles have always been dynamic and in rare cases remain stagnant. Thus, with the change in the market and the changes in the personal strategies of the developers, the overall strategic scenario of the field has started to take turn into a more aggressive and assertive approach. The overall environment of the business market has converted into a warzone amongst the flourishing real estate developers as the concept of mutual profit no longer exists in the sector. As the industry now attempts to change its strategies into ones that fit that current scenario, the previous business strategies start to shift to war strategies in how business operates especially in real estate, to flourish in the rapidly changing market sector, in the midst of a pandemic.