Open for Business – Sort a of..

In the previous posts discussed the trends we were seeing from Singapore and posed a fun question about Covid.  After some comments and discussions, my opinion is that Covid is closest to Cricket.  David Annis had a great point that in cricket you can have a tie. After a Stay at Home April and now May, feels like our battle with Covid is going to be long and a challenging game to win.   

Here are some updates from Asia since the last post:

• Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Taiwan are getting close to the New Normal.  Many people are heading back to the office (with social distancing), new normal life is restarting, but still no travel.  South Korea is having a small spike, will need to monitor for a second outbreak.
• Australia and New Zealand are starting to head back this week.
• Japan has extended its strongly encouraged lock down through the end of May.  
• Singapore, Manilla, and the big cities of India are still in a severe lockdown, but some relief is in sight.
• Malaysia, Thailand, and parts of India are starting step one to open back up.

3 takeaways after leading through this new situation for 3 months?

 –  Local Matters: Early in this cycle we pushed decision making to our teams in country since the outbreak varies.  Now this is even more important so we can adjust to government requirements and new cultural norms.  We are adjusting various parts of the business in anticipation of Covid being with us for the rest of 2020.  

 – Resilience through Community: In this crisis, social distancing created a large gap in us being able to physically support each other. We recently started a virtual coffee series with countries to understand how they are doing and listen to their challenges.  We are encouraging everyone to take time out and form your communities personally and at work.  A few stories, jokes, and some empathy makes everyone feel a little better.

 –  Caring while Preparing: Take care of you and your family first. It’s been great to work for SAS through 2 major economic and a few personal crises. Our founder recently had an interview on Bloomberg, which highlights his philosophy. We are continuing to support our customers while keeping our teams safe and adjusting to new guidelines.

Winston Churchill said “Never waste a good crisis”.

We need to use the time of creating new habits to make changes which are long overdue:

• Helping our Planet – Time for all of us to do our part. We’ve seen the side effect of Covid’s stop, clean air and water. Let’s accelerate the work.
• Embrace the Triple Bottom Line. All stakeholders matter.
• Move to Annual versus Quarterly guidance for public companies. 3 months is a blink in time, let’s stop focusing on the short term.

It would be great if after this crisis, all of us raise our voices and actions to create the “New Normal” which we want for our families and communities.

Please share your thoughts or favorite organization working to move these causes forward.