Coronavirus is all we’ve been talking about for weeks. As much as we hate to put out yet another coronavirus thread, it’s important to talk about the potential ramifications of COVID-19 on your business.
Having an office on the ground in Europe allows us to follow the progress of the virus and the new rules EU governments are imposing. This is helpful information, in case a similar scenario plays out in the US.
Our European office now operates entirely online, with 45 people working remotely from their homes. This temporary seclusion was prompted for two reasons. Sofia, where our office is located, has declared a state of emergency and is under complete lockdown. Only grocery stores and hospitals are allowed to remain open. Other businesses have been shut down and/or relocated to a home environment. The government has called for complete isolation, and we feel it’s our social responsibility to respect the rules in these strange times. It’s also our duty to protect our team members and their families.
We are a business that relies on collaboration and teamwork. Thankfully, we are also a business that already has a flexible remote working policy and is practiced in handling meetings with individuals in remote locations around the world between both our US and EU offices. We have a simple and thorough business continuity plan and we have begun implementation of it across our business operations.
Being a tight team and having strong internal management processes has been a real advantage in this situation. We feel fortunate to be able to move to a home office environment with little disturbance to our processes as a company. We were able to move our entire team and adjust our computers, networks, and software installations in less than 24 hours. Not every business can manage that. In fact, most of our clients can’t.
We wanted to let you know and make sure you can feel at ease coming to us for any needs now, during, and after these unprecedented times. We are here and working for you!
With all of this said, the current crisis might be a good reason to rethink your business models, e-commerce options, and online outreach. We are realigning our business strategy as a team to global events like the coronavirus outbreak. Perhaps your business model would benefit from a few targeted adjustments as well.
Should you need advice, don’t hesitate to reach out. Together, we can think of ways to strengthen your digital strategy and offer you guidance during these strange times. You can reach our team at hello@edesigninteractive.com.