Covid 19 Surviving the coronavirus crisis

The outbreak of the corona virus disease has had a huge impact on all of us, both sociologically and economically.

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Social Inclusion says it is a human, economic and social crisis.

Chan Siew Mei, Head of Advisory, KPMG in Malaysia says in her article, Beyond Covid-19: Embracing the “New Normal” – Post MCO reset

With the precautions being put in place by countries globally, it’s a question of time before the threat is contained and life returns to normal, or near normal.

In the meantime, how do we cope with the challenges presented by the lock down? Manage both family and business life?

Being in lock down means we are all essentially stuck at home. This in itself presents it’s own challenges. Sure, it’s nice being with the family and still managing work (if that is possible), but the novelty of it wears off after four weeks of lock down. Simply put, the thought that you’re not able to go about the normal family activities like eating out once in a while will wear everyone down.

Then there is the work aspect. Not being able to go in to the office to manage the day to day running of your business does not feel right. You are not able to go about routine work as easily at home as when you are physically in the office. Business owners and management would be equally concerned about revenue generation and sustainability.

In short, it is quite a challenge no matter which way we look at it. There are questions, uncertainties that we are all grappling with.

We’ve put together a list of areas that a business should look at to ease the challenges currently facing them:

1. Communication is key
2. Business continuity
3. Supply chain disruption
4. Customer and sales management
5. Vendor and supply management
6. Cash flow management
7. Scaling down

Moving forward, we should also take lessons learned from this pandemic and apply them diligently moving forward. If we look at history, we should realise that this can and will repeat.

As can be seen from the table above, over the last two decades, we have had 3 SARS related out breaks.