No-one needs to tell business owners and managers just how difficult life is at this unique moment in time. My business is ‘fortunate’ enough to be able to re-deploy to home working. A unique situation for a lot of people in my business, not so much for me as I’m used to travelling and home working, as I’m sure many senior managers are.
The critical issue here, is making sure the wheels keep turning when our work environment is turned upside down. Making sure we keep delivering value to our customers and clients, so that they can keep their wheels turning also.
In the uncharted waters we find ourselves in, we can’t let the tide rip us under or the entire supply chain will collapse. We have to find ways of staying afloat, and then making sure our bows are into the wave.
Many businesses will have continuity plans, for fires, theft and the like, but the breath-taking speed at which the COVID 19 has rolled us all over, really is something not many of us have been prepared for.
So, right now, it’s time to get back onto our feet, have a look around and figure out the answers to the questions we’re all facing:
• Can we keep our doors open?
• If so, how do we ensure productivity of staff can be maintained?
• How do we keep morale strong and communicate easily, clearly and regularly with staff and customers if or when we face lockdown?
• How do we make sure the meetings still happen even if they aren’t face to face?
• How do we keep our sales pipelines open, and turning the hope into gold?
But, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are over 1.5m people in the UK who work from home already. Many larger businesses are used to having senior management working remotely, and what about the legions of sales teams out on the roads, used to ‘checking in’ with their teams on a weekly basis.
Technology will clearly have a significant and positive impact for us all now that we’re facing isolation, on many different levels. I don’t know about anyone else but Day 1 of home schooling, and it already feels like it’s going to be a long slow climb out of this hole for many, forced to carry on from the relative (dis)comfort of our homes.
FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, gotomeeting, simplyvideo are all being used to connect us to meetings with family, friends and colleagues as we move inevitably towards a period of lockdown. Apps such as Fantastical and Bear Focus Timer can help us be organised and focused as we try and keep our P&Ls pumping from home.
For my business, our CRM platform KulaHub, is now more important than ever, ensuring we can centralise our operational, sales and marketing teams, communicate effectively with our customers via email and social media platforms, and make sure we are all fully aligned to our new purpose in the new world. It can automate so many of our business tasks, and connect to other platforms, all remotely, all from home! It’s certainly making business easier in these difficult times.
For those who are worried about the jobs, mortgages and livelihoods, there isn’t much comfort to be had, other than to say that this will be a temporary situation. I feel deeply worried for those in the leisure and travel sectors, who rely on customers coming through their doors. But for those of us in the services sectors, let’s keep the wheels turning.
This tragedy, is a human one. But we’re all in it together, and we all need each other to help us get out of it. Let’s keep on talking, providing care, comfort and humanity.
KulaHub is a technology platform with a human face. If you want to pick up the phone, or connect with myself, Andrew Booth and I’d be happy to talk to you and provide some common sense help or advice to keep the wheels turning.
