My Strategy For Surviving Coronavirus

By Alex Wellings, commercial and operations director of soVision IT based in Bristol. The company has been going for more than 25 years and offers managed IT services, software development services and digital marketing services.

When did you realise the Coronavirus could be a problem for you and your business? 

It was more of a slow realisation of the potential business impacts around the start of March as the spread started to ramp up. 

Workload significantly increased as customers required IT based working from home solutions at pace and the demand for laptops and other portable devices skyrocketed making them hard to procure. 

What has been your plan to continue? 

We are in a fortunate position that many businesses have not found themselves. The business has a full disaster recovery & business continuity plan which is reviewed and updated annually. This was successfully put into practise in a phased fashion over the course of a week, and almost all staff are now working from home. The business is operating as close to normal as possible.

Customer & internal communication has been key, and has been at the heart of all of the actions that have been taken. Both customers and staff have been understandably shaken by the current events, and are trying to ensure that life can continue as normal for them. All customers have been kept up to date regarding how the business has adapted to meet the Government requirements, and reassured that the business is operating normally. Internal communications have been regular and (hopefully) useful for staff during this time.

It’s difficult to say what will happen next, and this does mainly centre on how long lock down remains in force. As a business, we are able to continue to operate in the current way for as long as required, however completing project based work on site will be a challenge for the foreseeable future.

What advice would you give to others in business? 

Communicate. 

Clear, concise, positive, often. 

This is both outwardly and internally, staff and customers want to know what is going on in your business in order to feel reassured. 

Marketing here plays a crucial role.

What can we do to help each other?

Following the government guidance is key for everyone, both staff and customers. Providing staff with PPE where it is possible to keep them as safe as they can be. 

What do you think can be learned from this in the business world?

The lasting lesson here is how drastically unprepared most businesses found themselves at crunch time. I would like to think that all business owners and leaders will regroup following this pandemic, and will have a much closer look at their business continuity plans, or create one if they don’t have one currently.

Your parting thought?

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” Oscar Wilde

For more information visit https://www.sovisionit.com