While speaking at an event organised by industry lobby grouping CII, Alok Kshirsagar, a senior partner with McKinsey & Company, said India should have done more to protect employment in some way, shape or form during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Analysts are expecting a surge in bad loans from the otherwise resilient retail segment for the banking sectors because of such reverses.
Kshirsagar said the boards have to build resilience within a company to withstand shocks and added that it may result in upfront investments for the same.
Apart from people, the broad areas where a company needs to invest includes supply chains, distributor relationships or working capital limits, he said, adding the consultancy has received a lot of queries from companies on the cost of such investments, which may create some redundancies as well.
“It took a while for the boards to come around and it needs to be a cost which you can explain to rating agencies, equity analysts and investors as actually an appropriate and worthwhile cost because of the resilience it provides and obviously the risk-adjusted returns,” he noted.
