Bdaily Festive Focus 2020: AccuraCast founder Farhad Divecha dreams of sun, sand and Christmases to come

In the sixth piece of our festive focus series, Bdaily spoke with Farhad Divecha, founder and MD of digital marketing agency AccuraCast, who shared his experience of running his business during the pandemic, what it has taught him about life and what he is looking forward to most.

How has 2020 changed the way that you live, work, and think?

“Life has become more static – not much travel, but I find it’s gotten a lot busier.

“2020 definitely opened our eyes to recruiting internationally – we’re no longer confined to people who live near our office locations.”

What has been your single biggest challenge and how have you overcome it?

“In person events are an important part of our business, and having to work, build client and supplier relationships without them has been difficult.

“We’re still figuring this out – Teams / Zoom fatigue is real, and we can see that from dwindling numbers of conference attendees.”

What has been the biggest unexpected positive to come out of this year?

“We’ve been growing rapidly – 50-75 per cent year on year, and when COVID hit, we thought this year would turn out to be a disaster.

“However, we did manage to get things back on track remarkably quickly – our business grew over 20 per cent this year, which isn’t as good as the past few years, but given the circumstances, I think it’s awesome!”

What does your ideal Christmas look like?

“Sunny, warm, sandy, with a Christmas tree that has a huge heap of presents under it (and at least some with my name on them!).”

How do you think people and businesses can support each other during 2020’s festive season?

“I think if all businesses tried to carry on “business as usual”, as much as they can, that would really help.

“Of course, we can’t travel and all go to the office, but if businesses didn’t all just go into money-saving mode, especially in industries that aren’t directly hit, then that would help the ones that are badly hit.

“For example, just because you’re working from home, don’t stop patronising restaurants altogether – order in.

“Companies can organise Christmas celebrations – everything from secret santa to office parties remotely and get a bit creative with how they arrange them, without just cutting off that important income stream for hospitality providers.”

What does 2021 look like for you and your business?

“We’re very optimistic, especially given the recent news of the vaccine.

“We hope most businesses can pull through this final stretch and then by next Christmas, this whole year will be a distant nightmare.”

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