With Maharashtra witnessing the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country, fund houses have closed their collection centres and branch offices.
Understandably, this has affected the day to day functioning of fund managers and how they go about their jobs. Fund managers usually start their day at work by meeting other fund managers and analysts. Now, such meetings are taking place through calls. Interactions with the sales team, distributors and investors are also occurring through calls or video conferences.
On the trade execution front, a well-thought out business continuity plan is helping fund managers overcome the day to day operational challenges.
Navneet Munot, CIO, SBI MF said, “We have a strong Business Continuity Plan (BCP) in place to ensure working from offsite. Last week, over half of our team were working from home. We had prepared for an eventuality of almost everyone working from home and this week we have implemented that. The IT team has been working round the clock to support all of us.”
Navneet added that the largest fund house’s external and internal meetings have moved to virtual meetings now.
“All team members are also getting adjusted to a new reality in terms of remaining connected, communicating etc. Who knows, this will ultimately turn out to be the future of work,” said Navneet.
Fund houses have been preparing to work offsite for quite some time now and that preparedness has come handy.
Rahul Singh, Chief Investment Officer - Equities, Tata MF said, “We have been doing BCP- business continuity planning for the last 7-10 days. Meetings have been converted to calls and video conferences. As a result, there is no impact on day to day functioning and decision making.”
George Heber Joseph, CEO and CIO ITI MF said that interaction with analysts takes place via calls and video conferences for now.
Another important part of the fund managers job is visiting companies and factories. Fund managers said that these visits have been postponed for now.
