Bidding farewell to 2021: An ode to the year gone by

Gurgaon (Haryana) [India], December 31 (ANI/NewsVoir): As we bid Adieu to 2021, there is undoubtedly a lot to reminisce about. It has indeed been a year full of challenges, a chance to reflect and reimagine goals. Businesses over the last year have adopted to the new normal and designed their strategies enabling them to finally take a breath of fresh air.
Each industry dealt with its own set of hurdles. From tech to fashion to immigration and beyond, here is what some leaders from across industries have to say about the year gone by and what they expect from 2022:
Sanjay Chatrath, Managing Partner, Incuspaze (Enterprise Managed Workspace Provider)
"While there have been enough assumptions about how offices and work will pan out in the upcoming year, especially with the Omicron threat coming in, it is best to patiently watch the demand trajectory and then decentralize offices into flexible workspaces. There is a huge demand for co-working spaces that have been witnessed in the last few months, which will essentially roll over in the next year. 2022 will be about flexibility and wellbeing along with business expansion. Flexible workspaces will help companies achieve their 2022 plans in a cost-effective, efficient, and hassle-free manner. The upcoming year, I hope, will be the evidence of the beginning of satellite and flexible workspace for years to come."
Nishchal Dua, Director of Marketing, Airmeet (Near to Real Virtual Events Platform)
"With a multi-fold increase in revenue, we gave big events to organisations such as the United Nations Association in Canada, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Shell a virtual home amidst the pandemic. We continued to invest in advanced technology and our brainchild subscription model 'Social Webinar' that gets you closer to your audience; and features such as Integrations dashboard, a new Social Lounge UI to help add more context to every table conversation, ticketing, etc. The large-scale webinars use-case segment captured the largest revenue share this year and is expected to maintain its dominance over the next seven years. With uncertainty in the air as new variants are discovered, and with so many still unvaccinated, online and hybrid remain the best solution for many meetings and events around the globe. This means that virtual events will be in demand, and the best ones will be those that increase their engagement value."
Eric Wei, Senior Sales Director, ViewSonic - Asia Pacific (Global provider of Visual Solutions)
"In 2021, ViewSonic observed a significant growth across segments. From the IFP series to home entertainment projectors to gaming and professional monitors, we introduced new products and upgraded existing ones across every category. As a result, we saw significant demand for our products, resulting in three times the growth in terms of turnover. The rising demand of hybrid / online mode of teaching, helped us to maintain our position as the No. 1 IFP brand with a 47 per cent market share since 2020. Similarly, our projector segment witnessed a market share of 63 per cent for LED. In quarters 2 and 3, we secured our place in the top three DLP Projector Providers and ranked No. 1 in the LED Projector segment respectively. We also became the fastest growing PC monitor brand in India, adding more to our achievements. Observing the current growth and demand of our products and solutions, we will upgrade and introduce new products and solutions to meet the needs of our end-users."
Mark Davies, Global Chairman, Davies & Associates, LLC (Immigration Law Firm)
"As an immigration law firm that assists Indian business owners with moving to the USA, it has been an unusual year. People reassessed their lives during the pandemic and so demand for relocating overseas is sky high, but the US border remained closed to Indians until November, which has made it tricky for people to physically move. We helped many Indian clients file the paperwork for their visa in 2021 which puts them in a good position in the visa queue. The immigration industry was hopeful that the election of Joe Biden and the arrival of COVID vaccines would make 2021 a more positive year than 2020. While there were some positive notes, for example, the reopening of the H-1B and L-1 Visa routes, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to have an adverse impact on global mobility.
The US border remained shut until November 2021, and the United States consulates across India did not resume full operations. We are excited that the five US consulates across India intend to resume normal operations in 2022, but of course much depends upon the course of the Covid pandemic. The EB-5 Regional Center Program, for which Indians are one of the largest applicant groups, is expected to return potentially as early as February pending Congressional reauthorization. We also expect to see continued growth in the number of Indians seeking a US E-2 Visa via the Grenada CBI route - this two-step process to owning a business in the United States has become popular in part because the E-2 Visa is less affected by political pressures in Washington."
Manthan Dhameliya, Owner Kreeva (Indian Ethnic Wear Store for Women)
"2021 was the year of growth and expansion for Kreeva. Increasing its footprint in the market, the brand expanded its customer base beyond key metros and entered tier two and three cities as well. Furthermore, the growth margins locked in 4x returns as compared to the last year. With approximately 25 crores as revenue, the brand also successfully launched a range of festive and wedding collections adding glamour to its existing apparel range.
While the fashion e-commerce industry underwent a series of rapid changes in terms of customer behaviors and purchasing patterns owing to the global COVID 19 pandemic, the coming year looks positive in terms of witnessing development and growth on multichannel marketing. Consumers started preferring personalized outfits to match their style resulting in many brands offering customization for their range of products in 2021. Further to this transition, 2022 will see Augmented Reality taking a center stage in the e-commerce industry. E-commerce brands /retailers will be looking to provide an interactive shopping experience to all the users with the help of AI and AR, therefore, creating awareness, building loyalty, and converting users into paying customers."
Vidhu Nautiyal, Co-founder & Chief Revenue Officer, CloudConnect Communications Pvt. Ltd. (Full-service cloud-based platform)
"Starting the year on a positive note, CloudConnect locked in more than 100-plus enterprise to its customer base. The expansion was also supported by upgradation and optimisation of brand's network infrastructure. This year witnessed a significant shift towards digital platforms/technology owing to the global Coivd-19 pandemic. Businesses (small and medium) specifically transitioned towards the adaptation of solutions that provides free to work from any part of the country as well as was reliable and advanced in nature to meet the work/consumer demands. Taking a step further in this direction, VoIP Enabled Cloud Communication was one of the most sorts after solutions to manage calls without compromising on quality and cost.
Furthermore, the year 2022, we will have significant developments in the technology sector as the shift towards advanced and effective business models/services is and will be the need of the hour. Owing to the same demand, Artificial Intelligence and Text-to-speech will be the one to look forward."
Sanjay Jain, Director, Elanpro India (A Commercial Refrigeration Company)
"Despite several ups and downs in the first few months of the year, we saw a tremendous increase in our business compared to the previous year. We conceived, designed, created and produced products that can satisfy the needs of our end users. Being into a commercial refrigerator market and catering to numerous sectors ranging from retail to pharma, we curated our products in most of our segments to meet the industry requirements. We developed portable Vaccine Freezers, introduced new items in our retail divisions, such as the Frost-free upright freezer and Pastry Display. Expanding our business, we also reached new heights this year by investing in two new businesses - we invested in Icold Refrigeration Pvt. Ltd., a company that specializes in cold storage and we acquired Thingif(y), a software solution provider that aids in product temperature monitoring.
In 2022, Make in India, a government project will become increasingly important, encouraging enterprises to focus on manufacturing in India. As a result, we are focusing on moving in this route as well. As we approach 2022, we envision a promising year that will help us in recuperating from the recent ramifications and enabling us to flourish in a new way."
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