‘Healthcare benefits are now seen by companies as an investment rather than a cost’ – 15 quotes from India’s COVID-19 struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous edition here). This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

See also our pick of Top Quotes of 2021 on Entrepreneurship, Investment, Digital Transformation, Storytelling, The India Opportunity, Pandemic Resilience, Failure Recovery, Design, and Art.

The government relied on domestic producers during the increased demand for crucial goods for the nation during the COVID-19 crisis, causing the Indian medical device industry to become self-sufficient. - Ashutosh Verma, Exalta

Healthcare benefits are now seen by companies as an investment rather than a cost to the organisation, which have helped several employees move back to offices from their hometowns. - Yogesh Agarwal, Onsurity

Today, we are witnessing the [design thinking] approach successfully adopted in milieus—ranging from improving sanitation standards to encouraging employees to return to offices post the COVID-19 pandemic. - Pavan Soni, 'Design Your Thinking'

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The harsh blow of COVID-19 has forced the MSME industry to fight for survival and overcome the challenges that have impacted it. - Varun Moolchandani, Archies Limited

COVID-19 was an eye opener as there was a disruption of transportation and states had closed borders. There was a huge shortage of many items, including COVID-19 essentials. - Rahul Mamman Abraham, Haeal

We had spoken to a few Teach for India fellows to start working with their classrooms, but the pandemic kicked in and everything went into a limbo. - Priyal Keni, Play and Shine Foundation

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[Year in Review 2021] 10 inspiring stories of people who made the world a better place

Our sales shot up 20X for a brief period since there was high demand for ready-to-cook food. - Archit Agarwal, Steamup Foods

We utilised the COVID period as a R&D period, and we came up with multiple alternatives during the two years for e-commerce, pharmaceutical, take-away, food and beverages packaging, and FMCG. Since then, we have constantly been working on innovations. - Vaibhav Anant, Bambrew

We modernised and upgraded our systems and processes to support increased demand from customers who were stuck at home due to lockdowns and who began spending time on home improvement projects. - Ankur Mittal, Lowe's India

The wave of online purchasing spurred by the pandemic has gripped Indian consumers who have migrated to ecommerce platforms. - Mona Singh, India Accelerator

The sudden boom in online shopping led to the emergence of some of the most promising D2C brands giving tough competition to legacy consumer brands. - Vishesh Khurana, Shiprocket

A Gartner report shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the rise of 5G infrastructure throughout the world by 39 percent in 2021. - Vikram Thaploo, Apollo Hospitals Group

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[Year in Review 2021] How women entrepreneurs pivoted during the pandemic and saw tangible results

To overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak, enterprises such as MSMEs underwent various transitions by adopting a digital path and new business strategies in line with the new normal. - Varun Moolchandani, Archies Limited

In the pre-COVID era, there was a lot of variability in terms of the time people came into work. In the post-COVID era, people are generally coming in at the same time and leaving at the same time. - Deepesh Agarwal, WorkInSync

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).