Good morning, here's our repartee of the week.
“You made 500K Teslas last year. We fed 115M+ people w/ nearly 20B rations. You know how to make cars; we know how to feed people. Decades of proven experience. Systems/ops in place. I look forward to showing you how we do it.”, tweeted David Beasley - Executive Director for the UN World Food Programme.
David was responding to Elon Musk's tweet - “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”
On to real estate stuff then…
But Seriously
Playfulness and flirting are all cool but nothing really comes close to things getting serious.
That is when we realise that all our efforts have been meaningful.
Operating along those very lines, the Mohali authorities are now serious-as-hellfire, warning that buildings without fire safety approvals will be sealed if they fail to comply by November 30, 2021.
The Backstory
The Mohali Municipal Corporation had issued 644 fire NOCs in 2017, while also dishing out 320 notices in 2018 and 98 in 2019 to defaulting entities.
2020 was a year when inspections and evaluation processes did not take place but since the lockdowns have ended, the alert folks at the Fire NOC department have sent out 164 notices asking establishments to become fire safety compliant.
Facing The Heat
While Fire NOC is mandatory for a property under the Punjab Municipal Act, it has been found that many buildings are in open violation of safety norms.
Recent fires have raised questions on the way the department functions because despite receiving fire NOCs, many establishments have not installed or maintained fire safety equipment as required. Also, violators have not been pulled up or fined.
🎙 Authorities have woken up though and Municipal Commissioner Kamal Kumar Garg minced no words when he said to the press, "those who will not attain fire NOC by November 30 will face sealing."
Ignorance Is Not Bliss
Futuristic warehouse automation, advanced robotics and artificial intelligence are often cited as testimony that warehousing is progressing rapidly.
Whilst nothing is taking away the fact that tech advancements have indeed happened, the question is about its widespread adoption on the warehouse floor.
Is a collective advancement being made? Or, in reality, are SME’s being left behind by the richer, larger organisations?
The SME Truth
Research shows that even today, SMEs are systemically utilising the same 100-year-old process despite other modern and value-generating alternatives, having existed for decades.
A global survey recently revealed that the transport and storage industry is amongst the least active innovators - with only 33% of organisations actively innovating.
In contrast, the electrical equipment industry operates at 63%.
Also, a large business is 35% more likely to be adopting warehousing tech than an SME in the same sector. Sadly, the same survey shows that innovation rates have dropped by 34% in warehousing for SMEs since 2012.
Cost, Risk and Knowledge
For eons, studies pinpoint three perceived sets of barriers to tech adoption within the SME sector: cost, risk and knowledge.
SMEs believe that costs will be steep, the process too challenging, and the risks too high.
Also, SMEs perceive innovation and technology as being the forte of larger organisations alone.
But since that's not true, the keyword here is perception. SME warehouse operations’ general lack of awareness of the reality of warehousing technology has fanned widespread misbeliefs, hampering innovation for decades.
Awareness Is The Issue
With the use of cheap and powerful computing power, and reducing business risk due to innovative processes, the only reason why SMEs are lagging is - the lack of awareness.
If SMEs are made aware of a technology that can help them, then many tech startups are available to help bridge the knowledge gap. And those tech startups can then ROFL all the way to the bank.
Is anyone listening? Hit reply and share your views with all of us.
Half A Cup Extra
- Nifty Realty stocks bullish for third day; Indiabulls Real Estate, Phoenix Mills, Prestige lead gains.
- SBI's Soumya Kanti Ghosh says that real estate and construction have seen most formalisation.
- US warehouses are running out of space as containers pile high.
Just One Case
While even lockdown-happy countries like New Zealand and Australia have shelved their zero Covid strategy, citing that the highly contagious Delta variant makes it unreal, China continues to shut down society when any sign of a Covid outbreak is seen.
Recent over-reactions from China
- Two trains were stopped dead in their tracks last week when two crew members were discovered to have been in close contact with Covid positive people.
- After finding just one positive case on Saturday, a county in Jiangxi province turned every traffic light red to discourage people from driving.
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An immense amount of cash and effort is being deployed to save the environment, our planet, and our very existence.
It is only wise to not undo any of that by being irresponsible this Diwali.
We take your leave for the rest of the week and promise to be back on Monday with the latest stories.
Happy Diwali. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai