COVID-19 – The responsible SA Business Response

[Dave A]

By mid-morning Friday 6th March I was left in no doubt as to the serious impact COVID-19 a.k.a Coronavirus was going to have on South Africa. In just two hours our little hygiene company had more enquiries for sanitizer type products than we have had for the previous two years.

And it didn't take long to find the reality was grim. Chasing our supply chain to get santizer products, it was quickly established that demand had just massively outstripped available supply. This past week I have spent much time trying to deal with the supply chain problem (more about that later), but what I want to kick off here first is a very frank discussion about what is the appropriate, responsible response for a South African Business to this crisis.

Based on experience from around the world, it is clear the harsh reality is there are two serious threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to consider:

• Widespread infection will quickly result in a shortage of medical resources for those who need medical help.
• While it seems the health impact will be pretty small for the vast majority of us, the economic impact is likely to be significant and affect all of us

So measures need to protect staff and clients as much as possible, reduce transmission rates, and do whatever we can to manage the economic impact.

During the past week each division within our group has met to develop a strategy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic threat. My two headline points arising from those meetings are these:

The time to change our habits and practices is NOW.
Reported cases in SA are still pretty low, but breakout and rapid escalation seems highly likely, even inevitable. (I see the NICD report for today has reported cases in SA up to 51, so things are moving along quickly.)

It takes time to change habits and practices. If we can make these changes now (before the virus is widespread), we'll be better placed for the day personal exposure comes and our habits and practices become critical to our personal outcome.

The potential economic impact strikes closer to home than the health threat.
Most of us are not going to face a serious health impact from this virus, so it's easy to think "no big deal." However, ask how well placed staff and the business is to face a 30 to 60 day loss of income tends to sharply focus the minds of those around the table...

I'll start covering other points and thoughts that have come up so far in following posts. Feel free to add your own thoughts and points along the way.