Over-whelming response & enthusiastic participation

The first-ever webinar of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) received an overwhelming response from members and stakeholders. Held on Thursday 9 April 2020, the level and the quality of participation was superlative and thought-provoking.

The panelists and speakers at the webinar on ‘COVID-19 and Small Business’ comprised experts in the field of finance, taxation and public policy and included

• Pramod Goyal, President, ICCC, and President & CEO, Canadawide Financial Corporation Ltd.
• Sanjay Kulkarni, Vice President, Finance, ICCC, and a seasoned operationally oriented Finance Executive
• Sanjay Chadha, Senior Advisor to ICCC, and Partner, SAV Associates Chartered Professional Accountants
• Dharma Jain, Past President, ICCC, and Principal, DP Jain Professional Corporation

All of them are financial advisors and planners for small businesses and corporations.

• Vijay Thomas, Vice President, International Trade & IT, ICCC, moderated the discussion.

The first webinar was a part of a series of webinars called ‘ICCC Thursday Talks’ that have been planned during the next few weeks to continuously engage our members and stakeholders in these times of enforced social distancing.

The main takeaways from the webinar were:

• Although unprecedented, this crisis will pass and won’t last forever
• Our generation’s first experience of a pandemic
• Compared to previous generation’s sacrifices for instance, in WW-II, our generation's crisis may pale in significance
• Opportunity to tackle business issues that have been perennially on the backburner and take challenging decisions about restructuring
• Government incentives are welcome but will definitely cause inflation, and higher taxes in the near-term
• Incentives should only be used ethically

The participation in the webinar ‘COVID-19 and Small Business’ was so large that it choked the webinar platforms, and, unfortunately, some members and stakeholders who had signed up for the program couldn’t access it.

We are delighted to provide them the link to the recording of the program:

Download the recording from Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pmb4CHVmXgD0XvCj1qV3VIITp41YIpTZ

Download the WebEx player app

https://www.webex.com/video-recording.html   

Open the downloaded Google Drive file on the WebEx player

You may download the presentation made during the webinar here: ICCC Thursday Talks – COVID-19 & Small Business

The occasion was also used to launch the ICCC BUSINESS ASSIST PROGRAM, whereby the Chamber will provide a pro bono business advisory service to any small business.

The ICCC BUSINESS ASSIST PROGRAM will initially be offering counseling focused in the following areas:

• Availing Government benefits for small businesses
• COVID-19 impacted issues falling under Financial Services domain
• Business Accounting, Taxation, Statutory Filing Challenges
• Impact and solutions within Information Technology Area
• Assistance for Business restructuring

How:

• Send an email to iccc@iccconline.org under Subject Heading – “Business Assist Program”
• Provide your contact details including direct telephone number and specific area of counseling requested in.
• Upon the receipt of your email request, the ICCC BUSINESS ASSIST core group will review and assign to the best available resource, following which the assigned Team member would then contact you to discuss your specific business challenge and offer counseling on a Pro-bono basis.

In view of the unexpectedly large participation, and because a few members could not participate as the webinar platforms were overloaded, we are holding a second edition of the Thursday Talks scheduled at 4:30 pm Thursday 16 April on the same subject – COVID-19 and Small Business, with a different panel of experts.

As the Canadian Government’s response to the pandemic is evolving, there will be enough new material to discuss the same broad topic in the second edition of our series. So, please register here:

Time: 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm

Date: Thursday 16 April 2020

Register: ICCC's Thursday Talks-COVID-19 & Small Business

Speakers and panelists

• Pramod Goyal
• Anandiya (Andy) Mittra
• Vijay Thomas
• Chetan Sehgal
• Brian Cheng