COVID-19 hasn't drastically altered principles of doing business, says Jacky's Ashish Panjabi

Gulf News

Panjabi is not too taken up with all that talk about disruptions all over the place  Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/2PgMDPc   Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #UAEnews #Dubai #Covid19

Transcript

00:00I started my career in probably in the family business about 1999-2000 having worked in

00:08Hong Kong for a couple of years as a finance analyst.

00:10So I worked in the graphic arts industry for a couple of years in Asia Pacific and then

00:14made the move over here and joined into what was the family business at the time.

00:20The business at that stage was mail order, consumer electronics retail and some distribution

00:27businesses that the family was in.

00:29So I got involved initially in various areas of the business but being a finance and investments

00:35major I was put to look at the finance area in the beginning.

00:40But that didn't last very long.

00:42My nature is as such I started jumping into other areas of the business immediately and

00:45the same thing was there when I used to work in Hong Kong as well.

00:48One of the first things we did was we had an e-commerce business that we had launched

00:54in 1999-2000 and I sort of took over that business at that stage as well.

01:00So that was still when Amazon was in its infancies and still a bookseller is when we started

01:05selling online in the UAE and actually across the world.

01:10And then my own interest in the graphic arts business from the Far East is what I started

01:16expanding into once I got involved with the business as well over here.

01:20We did start working with various other companies, basically selling large printers which was

01:26a business that we were never in at that stage.

01:28Dubai has become a base for so many things and technology is one of those areas and I've

01:34been involved in a lot of the technology spheres right from the beginning.

01:39We ventured into the humanoid robotics business over the last couple of years and we're seeing

01:44the adaptations of that technology as the pandemic has grown.

01:48So today we've got solutions that work for disinfection, we've got solutions that work

01:52in the healthcare sector, we've got solutions that work in the education sector which are

01:56all sectors that are today in demand and are growing.

02:01We've also been involved in areas like 3D printing where we sell 3D printing solutions

02:06and as we keep going on we find new applications for that technology in the area.

02:12So I think we've been fortunate because we've been in the technology sector and if anything

02:17we've seen in the last one year, the demand has only grown for our retail businesses.

02:23We saw with the work from home, e-learning, suddenly everyone needed a laptop, a tablet,

02:30a television because people are watching Netflix and exercising at home.

02:34The bigger challenge for us was actually dealing with the shortages of supply.

02:39So we're fortunate we're in the right sector.

02:41We're also fortunate in that we are in a sector that has been selling online for many years now.

02:46So where a lot of retailers were tripping up in the beginning because they didn't have the

02:50e-commerce strategy, the electronics industry was on version two or three or four even of their

02:55rollout as far as e-commerce went. So we were better positioned to be where our customer is

03:00whether online, whether on their phone, whether in the store.

03:04So Jackie's turned 50 in the year 2020.

03:07So it would have been a year of a different type of celebration but we had to of course

03:12tone it down with that.

03:14And the one thing we did realize is the opportunities that we got by being in this

03:19country, being in the United Arab Emirates. We are literally in the center of the world

03:24and that gives us the confidence to grow and expand as if we were in the center of the world

03:31as well. So the key learnings, one was there's always a market that needs to be addressed.

03:37There's always opportunities that arise in these situations and it's a question of looking

03:41and finding those opportunities and then attacking it and being able to do that.

03:46The second is having a team that can work with you at that time and that can understand that

03:51and work within that culture, that ethos to actually sit and execute.

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