Forward-thinking companies will survive to come out stronger: Ola CEO

Covid-19 pandemic, subsequent lockdown restrictions and a preference for personal mobility options may have hit global ride-hailing market hard but Ola remains confident of forging its path ahead with determination and believes that constant innovation could mean a brighter and stronger future.

In his keynote address at the fifth edition of Hyunndai's Mobility Innovators Forum, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal outlined what the future could hold as far as mobility options for a society is concerned. Accepting that Covid-19 has brought with it challenges, he said there are opportunities galore as well. "Despite the short-term challenges, some companies continue to have an innovation mindset and see the middle long-term opportunity within the current transformation," he said. "Such transformation is accelerated by COVID-19 and these forward-thinking companies will survive to come out stronger in a few years’ time."

Aggarwal further stressed that segment players should seize the chance to better improve the hygiene and quality of service for consumers as well as accelerate digitization and electrification adoption.

This is not the first time, however, that Aggarwal has put the spotlight on the two crucial - if different - aspects of hygiene and electrification. In July, speaking at India Global Week 2020, he had stressed on how the need for cleaner, safer and more accessible mobility solutions will become even more relevant in the times to come. "The onus is actually on the industry to build those kinds of solutions, where the average citizen feels safe, to build solutions which are actually cleaner since this (pandemic) has been such a big disruption in our normal way of life," he had said at the time. "The industry, I believe, can actually take a very different path forward to a much more cleaner, climate-conscious future and move this global industry forward in that direction." (Full report here)