Smita Murarka, VP-Marketing, Duroflex says that consumers will look for the fluidity of purchase between brick-and-mortar and online platforms and integrating both will be key The world is still scrambling to navigate the ambiguity brought by Covid-19 outbreak. Businesses all over the world are facing a lot of challenging decisions such as shifting business hours, temporarily closing operations, fluctuating supply chains, and even protecting their frontline employees. In the midst of all this, while we are learning and adapting to the new normal, we see a few habits that consumers have picked up during this period and are here to stay such as prioritizing health and hygiene. Consumers are looking for brands they can trust. In a category like ours where there are a lot of unbranded purchases, we see a shift towards branded buying that provides quality and hygiene reassurance. As a leading brand, we see ourselves at the forefront of this shift. The past four months have been tumultuous for business and people alike. At Duroflex, we ensured we stayed emotionally connected with our consumers and be a source of solace by keeping abreast of changing consumer sentiment. Digital was the main driver for this communication and it will continue to play a leading role in our brand approach. As we slowly move towards opening up operations and we step out into this new normal, businesses need to start communicating about the tangible benefits and solutions they can provide. The right mix of a brand-led emotional communication along with product or solution-led communication to a rational communication will be the way forward. Living in the new normal also requires new comfort solutions and new assurances. We at Duroflex are launching a series of new products conceived for the new normal. One among them is our innovative bed-in-a-box solution, a high-quality mattress at a great price delivered straight to the consumer’s doorstep. This product also has a special triple anti-microbial fabric developed keeping in mind the needs of the new normal. As a retail brand, we are utilizing the entire digital ecosystem not just to connect with our consumers but also to bring our retail network together. We have also used digital to empower our dealers and help them get ready for a digital-led future. We have adapted too many retail tech solutions to bring in seamless integration between online and offline. Consumers will look for the fluidity of purchase between brick-and-mortar and online platforms and integrating both will be key. It is the need of the hour that brands find new ways of reaching out to consumers in this new normal. We are adapting to new models like contactless, virtual selling in which consumers can shop at the comfort of their homes, this is a project we have piloted recently to great success. Internally as a company, we have adapted a lot of tech-based ecosystems in the last three months which has changed the way various departments like finance, training, and HR function. These are unprecedented times and there is no rule book on surviving this. But as a brand with five decades of experience, we have overcome and grown through many hurdles. This rich experience is what is going to help us survive and emerge stronger in the future.