The crisis has always been pivotal for the development of societies. Pandemics have helped advance the healthcare-systems, and there have been several technological innovations. The businesses are striving to overcome the global financial crisis and the entrepreneurs are rising to the challenges caused by the COVID-19. As a resourceful response to the crisis, Gilco Global is providing continued support to its customers and also rendering full-time support to its installations in critical facilities like Hospitals. We had an interaction with Mr. Aman Moudgil who is a General Director with Gilco Global on the current situation and the changes he feels for the times ahead.
Aman has completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science Engineering from the prestigious Panjab University and was amongst the 1% of all students across streams and earned an Honours degree. He is one of the founding Directors of Gilco Global and specializes in IT and electronic Project Monitoring systems. He has also been recognized through various forums as a young emerging leader and has authored several international papers in technical journals and conference proceedings. Additionally, he is associated with Institution of Engineers, BNI, Indo Spanish Chamber of commerce, Indo Italian chamber of commerce, and Indian Importers Chambers of commerce and Industry.
Aman’s roles and responsibilities are diverse at Gilco Global. He leads the development of the company’s short-term and long-term strategies and evaluates the work of other executive leaders within the company. He further monitors the risk and ensures they are monitored and minimized. Aman constantly keeps himself updated with the competitive market landscape and expansion opportunities which have benefitted in making Gilco Global one of the leading mobility solution providers.
Specializing in Comprehensive Mobility Solutions
Gilco Global, an Indian arm of European elevator major Orona Group, has taken over the market in big time. It specializes in the field of mobility solutions for a variety of applications including elevators, escalators, moving walks, etc. and solutions for the aviation sector including automatic baggage handling system, gate seating, and specialized equipment for ground handling. “We are committed to sincere business and customer’s satisfaction with strategic alliances with leading solution providers from Europe,” said Aman.
The ability to customize every solution according to the client requirements is one of the key highlights of Gilco Global. In addition to the comprehensive solutions supplied by the company, it has the capability and proven references of supporting the customers in integrating the mobility solution in the premises/institutions because of the expertise of the leaders’ know-how in designing and execution of civil structures needed for integration of the mobility solution.
Safeguard Against the Inevitable
Aman expresses that the COVID 19 crisis has both short term and long term psychological and financial impacts. According to him, the construction sector already reeling with multiple challenges from lack of capital and credit avenues to insolvencies, multiple frauds and regulatory burden under the Environment Laws and the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, is now marred by the COVID 19 pandemic, with no likely relief in sight. Many nations had imposed lockdown to restrict the movement of people and social gatherings. Likewise, the Government of India also imposed lockdown to contain the pandemic. This has halted all the construction activity and most of the business activity across the country.
Aman shared that this lockdown will have multiple consequences and lead to more troubles like reverse migration, disruption of supply chains, amongst others. This will more than just affect the construction and engineering sector but cause many adverse hazards. The various restrictions imposed by the government will lead to a shortage of raw material and manpower, disrupted supply chain, further creating handicaps in the performing contractual obligations. He further said, “Some elements in construction and engineering are imported from countries, which may be more badly affected, creating a domino effect on the entire sector.” However, he advised that to safeguard against the inevitable, one can adopt corrective measures in time. “The first step is to evaluate the contract clause(s) to ascertain the extent of liabilities upon breach and the last step is to proactively adopt all measures to mitigate the liability by timely invoking the correct legal doctrine(s),” concluded Aman.
Adoption of Preventive Measures
Despite Spain being one of the badly affected countries, the factory located at Hernani, Gipuzkoa near San Sebastian was not shut not even for a single day. The steps undertaken by Aman and his team have helped them work smoothly amid the crisis. They have adopted strict measures to prevent any spread of COVID-19 within the factory. The people with symptoms were asked to stay at home, and only limited numbers of people were allowed in the factory, following the social distancing. Also, no visitors were allowed in the factory, only the employees with a permit were allowed to enter. Furthermore, periodic sanitization, staggering of lunch hours for workers are being strictly maintained. Apart from this, our factory relies on a lot of automatic processes (a number of processes are automatically performed by the use of robots, etc) thus limiting the number of the workforce needed to run the factory.
In addition to this, the work in India was also not staggered and was continuously monitored. “We were continuously rendering support to hospitals where our lifts are installed; we were also keeping a check on our installations remotely through our people who were working from home during the lockdown,” added Aman. Due to the new guidelines imposed by the government of India, the team renewed the operations completely. The preventive measures are being followed at the offices & the job sites to maintain the set of guidelines defined under MHA for the establishments in India.
Emphasis on the Workforce
Business reputations are built and lost during the times of crisis. Companies treating their employees well in time of hardship enhance their reputations as an employer and help build a loyal workforce. Where layoffs have been a telltale of the business community, Gilco Global has not laid off anybody but hired some additional workforce and given incentives to workers that were in the line of duty during the lockdown. Aman states that “we value our people the most”; who are nothing but the company when putting together. Gilco Global has always laid emphasis on improving the work conditions through various initiatives in order to make life at work more pleasant. Furthermore, the company was the first to take the COVID group Mediclaim policy. Also, it has been organizing team-building activities through video conferencing between multiple teams to keep them motivated and engaged and also used to provide safety talks to make the team members aware of the precautions to be taken to protect them from COVID-19.
To summarize, Aman has emphasized the focus of the company on to ensure the welfare of the workers and that Gilco Global is with them and their families.
Overcoming the Unannounced Challenges
The year 2020 may have started with a rough start for the industry with the unannounced challenges not coming to an end. However, the year has not halted the success of Gilco Global as it has already secured more orders against the previous year and is striving to deliver the same. The company has had a run of successful 6 years in India, following the same Aman asserts, “We are focused on delivering the best to the clients to ensure that 2020 doesn’t pull the brakes on our growth run in India.” Due to its product quality through the complete installations, Gilco Global is gaining popularity and securing continuous referrals in addition to other initiatives from the marketing team.
Message for the readers
“Emphasis on the welfare of the people and soon we shall come out of this situation stronger together.”
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