What was the problem you were grappling with?
We encountered two problems. First was when I decided to start Okinawa in 2015 with my wife and Co-founder Rupali Sharma. Initially, we travelled across Haryana to understand customers’ issues with EVs and the feedback was depressing. It was quite evident that consumers were in no mood to come out of the internal combustion engine (ICE) age. The second problem arose when Covid-19 hit globally, and the whole world came to a standstill. We had to chart out a plan to ensure business continuity.
Whom did you approach for advice and why?
I discussed it with my wife, and our familiarity with each other’s working styles proved to be powerful tools in coming to the best possible solution.
What was the advice you received?
My wife felt we should take these challenges as an opportunity to identify our key focus areas for the future. So, we decided to utilise the Covid-19 period to solidify our internal processes and systems. We jotted down a list of issues plaguing EVs during our inception and addressed these through our products.
How effective was it in resolving the problem?
It was very effective. We took it upon ourselves to build something that would change the entire perception of electric two-wheelers. We have designed appropriate strategies such as service and power-pack check-up camps to educate and make our customers and dealers responsive about electric two-wheelers so that our customers take proper care of the battery and their vehicles. As this tech is new, awareness is the key to customer guidance and satisfaction. We also took various initiatives during Covid-19 to empower our customers and dealers, and increased our focus on the service segment. The company-led initiatives allowed us to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 successfully and ensured business continuity in the post-pandemic.
