51% Companies' Surveyed Show No Adverse Covid 19 Impact: Amex

In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, while the resulting economic disruption is beyond measure, some of the sector that have not been impeded much and offer a glimmer of hope such as pharma, telecom and financial services.

A survey conducted by American Express of CFOs reveals that as many as 51% of the companies' have not been hit severely by the pandemic."They have either experienced growth or have had no impact on business performance," the survey said. For the survey, EY was the knowledge partner.

As per the survey while some of the sectors such as real estate, consumer durables, energy as well as automotive and technology logged decline in business activity attributable to the pandemic, the sectors that actually defied the sentiment are from financial services, manufacturing, health and pharma space.

The survey is infact a detailed report with sector wise inputs based on the extent of damage and the subsequent restrictions.

Further there remains a view that the economic impact, due to the pandemic or if restrictive measures are put in place for protracted periods,lasts for months if not years.

The survey's findings go in sync with Megha Chopra, Country Head, Global Services India, American Express who in an exclusive interview with a leading business portal said "Undoubtedly, the pandemic has caused an unprecedented impact on businesses. Both the degree of disruption and prolonged impact of disruption have been very, very high".

Further the sectors that have been the outliers amid the pandemic are online education, online media and e-commerce space. "They have topped the charts in terms of sales during the pandemic. The growth curve has been on the incline for these industries," Chopra said.

Others such as travel business saw their businesses totally disrupted during the pandemic. "We are seeing softer recovery in these sectors. Domestic travel has just started to inch back. It is not as pessimistic that we had earlier thought that it will only remain a virtual world. There are signs of soft recovery. It will take 18-20 months for full recovery, Chopra had said.

Also as many as 47% of the CFOs held the view that the economy will recover to normalcy in less than a year's time.

And as many as 55% respondents surveyed felt that customer delivery limitation was the top business concern that is followed by labour intensive production (38 percent), increased assistance from government (38 percent), working capital limitations (26 percent) and high dependence on manual ways of working (26 percent).

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