The rapidly evolving effects of Coronavirus (COVID-19) are already resonating on our country’s financial and business infrastructure. Beyond the critical care being provided by our nation’s emergency services, the impacts of COVID-19 have begun to test pressure points on businesses and industries that may not have been prepared for this version of necessary crisis management: retail, foodservice and supply providers.
As reported cases nationwide continue to rise, we also see seemingly endless social media pictures of empty shelves at our nation’s grocery and retail stores. Essential household staples such as milk, water, and bread appear hard to come by. Barren shelves highlight the scarcity of cleaning products, soaps, sanitizers, and paper goods, in particular, toilet paper.
The empty shelves, long lines at checkout and packed parking lots are optics that are exacerbating frayed nerves, and heightening levels of fear.
Now, however, more than ever, it is planning, not panic that is needed.
Companies including many of our clients are recognizing that while they have business continuity plans in place to help them deal with financial or economic surges, the current testing of our nation’s infrastructure is highlighting the need for crisis management, communication and tactical operations plans to help businesses survive, and in the longer tableau, recover from the pandemic.
At the Edward Davis Company, we are deploying compact tactical units to our clients to help them establish a command center and prepare crisis management plans to address some of the critical touchpoints for vulnerabilities during this COVID-19 outbreak. We have emergency room physicians, homeland security experts, emergency management leaders, and law enforcement officials on our team to assist.
We help our business partners establish a tactical operations center that collects intelligence, develops strategies, creates immediate responses, produces communications purposed both internally and externally, and crafts responses for their customers and employees that are consistent with CDC guidelines and best business practices.
At the Edward Davis Company, we can help you assess your organization’s response to the crisis thus far. We will help you establish intelligence systems throughout your organization to track the latest developments in the outbreak. For retail operations, you need to be concerned with the volume of customers in your stores, whether those numbers are safe, and how you will be able to provide for the safety of the shoppers and your employees. We are also ready to help evaluate your business continuity and recovery plans coming out the other side of this crisis.
We stand ready to help your organization through this trying time. Remember: don’t panic, prepare.