Post second COVID wave, CEOs expect swifter recovery: CII Poll

A CII CEOs Poll of 119 corporate heads showed that about 59 per cent of the CEOs polled expect the recovery in sales to be better than in the first wave for their companies, while 46 per cent of them expressed a similar trend for their respective industry sectors.

“The deadly second wave has not affected much of the economic activities as the lockdowns were largely designed to limit social gathering and this has helped limit the impact of the second wave on economic growth when compared to the first wave”, said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.

As vaccination holds the key to mitigating the impact of the second wave on economic activity and boosting consumer sentiment, Indian businesses are making concerted efforts to vaccinate their employees.

The poll results revealed that 55 per cent of employees of the polled firms have been vaccinated with at least the first dose of the vaccine.

Assessing the consumer demand for their sectors, 49 per cent of the CEOs expect it to be better in the first half of 2021-22 when compared to the same period in 2019-20. Similarly, 72 per cent of the CEOs expect private investments to be better in the first half of the current fiscal year when compared to the same period in 2019-20.

As many as 62 per cent of the corporate leaders confirmed that their firm was compelled to scale back operations during the second wave. Due to the scaling back of operations, the adverse impact on the profitability parameters of the firms is apparent too.

The poll results show 44 pc and 39 pc of the CEOs expect the dent on their revenue and net profit growth respectively to be over than 10 pc in the first half of the current fiscal as compared to the same period in 2019-20.