The coronavirus outbreak ensured that the Year of the Rat didn’t get off to the most propitious start. Over than millions have infected and 40+ countries affected. Cities in lockdown, travel restrictions in place, plant closures mounting. Global trade, commerce, tourism, investment, and supply chains in disarray.
The Coronavirus has impaired the ability to manage day-to-day service delivery for certain clients or at certain sites and result in, among other things, losses of revenue and inadvertent breaches of client contracts if a group of employees who serve the same customers was unable to work at the same time.
The IT industry has been facing an emergency due to coronavirus pandemic, with organizations shutting workplaces, stores, and processing plants. Many companies took a step to make life easier for those who are required to work from home to avoid further spread of the deadly virus.
There are several factors that COVID-19 has made the industry affected:
1) Productivity and Performance
Since some of the staff engineers cannot work from home or utilize the remote working facility, the companies have waived those employees and cut down their production. This way, it’s having a huge impact on the production and performance of their businesses. Some of it because of the travel bans which makes engineers can’t be present during onsite.
Companies must ensure high productivity while providing their employees with working conditions that will keep them safe.
While digital solutions can greatly help business leaders implement remote work policies to protect employees amid the coronavirus crisis, they must still do their part in understanding the needs of their staff. Ensure that your employees feel valued and that their well-being matters. Ultimately, keeping staff members happy and satisfied can motivate them to perform well at work – even during trying times.
2) Office & Facility Closures
The Coronavirus is a grave challenge to our great nation. Our first priority is always the safety of our people. Some governments have imposed even longer closure periods to reduce the motivation for people to travel back from their hometowns to where they work during this critical period.
3) Supply Chain Major Disruptions
Having originated in China, the region was hit hard as a large number of citizens contracted the disease and many were forced into quarantine. As the circumstances occurring, the cost of supplies from China may increase, stemming from overtime and expedited freight costs, as well as from paying premiums to buy up supply and hold capacity. This led to partial and full shutdowns of plants and factories, some of which were being used by prominent technology companies to manufacture their goods and products.
The possibility of this situation being prolonged beyond a month or two cannot be ruled out. In the long term, the recovery of the supply chain will take a longer time, which will affect not only China but also the global supply.
4) Cash Flow Management
Given the importance of cash flow in times like this, companies should immediately develop a treasury plan for cash management as part of their overall business risk and continuity plans. In doing so, it is essential to take a full ecosystem and end-to-end supply chain perspective, as the approaches are taken to manage cash will have implications for not only for businesses but also for customers.
Cash flow management needs to be an integral element of a company’s overall COVID-19 risk assessment and action planning in the near term. Even for companies that have not yet been adversely affected, we recommend management teams with concerns about COVID-19 actively evaluate their cash flow requirements, develop appropriate actions under various scenarios, and assess potential risks in and to their customer base and supplier network.
5) Ready For a Fully Remote Working
With the current world situation, working remotely is no longer the future of work. It’s a present situation many of us are facing right now.
Companies have switched to a fully-distributed team for the time being but not everyone in a team is prepared for the sudden switch.
The non-IT companies or small businesses seem helpless due to old systems, poor network connectivity, and UPS backup. Having a strong internet connection is key also training for staff to understand and get used to in using online software properly for communication.
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