Covid-19 has forced us to reevaluate how we work. Confinement, social distancing and working from home are the three main topics of the day.
How are you coping? What strategies have you or your business put in place to get through this period? Will it permanently change how we work together?
Yannick, I think (and I hope) that some good will come from this by forcing local businesses to reprioritise transformation, which in my view, has been woefully ignored by too much of the Caribbean for far too long.
For example, why is there only one supermarket pickup point in Martinique, an island with ~390 000 inhabitants? Worse than that, why can't we order groceries and have them delivered to our doors like I used to do over 20 years ago in the UK? It's crazy and in modern times shameful!
Why? Because the local mentality of business-owners that believe (and they're right in some ways) they have a captive audience that allows them to do whatever they like and customers will still come. 🤦♂️
Well, guess what, that's changing, accelerated bu Covid-19 perhaps ... And the change is likely to be permanent. And if it is, now is your time to do something about it.
Sure, it's fine and honourable to manufacture alcohol for hand cleansing and rent cars for free to medical staff, how about helping 380K people get food safely and timely without you moaning about the supermarkets being swamped and you not being able to handle the demand. Deal with the demand upfront!
This situation is going to be a real stress-test for all organization around the globe.
So far, everything is working well in our team, and we manage to be as productive as in the open space. Meeting happens through Teams, docs are shared on Office365, and Whatapps replace the coffee machine, for small talks and huddles. However, we are in for a marathon, here... so let's hope everyone manage to cope with this way of working for the next 2 - 4 weeks...
I don't know if "it will permanently change how we work together", but I really hope it will make FWI companies realize that Digital transformation is just NOT an option. It can be an amazing opportunity when everything is fine (better Data management, smoother collaboration, freedom to work from home) and a real safety net when everything go south (just like today). In short, an ally.
Yannick, I think (and I hope) that some good will come from this by forcing local businesses to reprioritise transformation, which in my view, has been woefully ignored by too much of the Caribbean for far too long.
For example, why is there only one supermarket pickup point in Martinique, an island with ~390 000 inhabitants? Worse than that, why can't we order groceries and have them delivered to our doors like I used to do over 20 years ago in the UK? It's crazy and in modern times shameful!
Why? Because the local mentality of business-owners that believe (and they're right in some ways) they have a captive audience that allows them to do whatever they like and customers will still come. 🤦♂️
Well, guess what, that's changing, accelerated bu Covid-19 perhaps ... And the change is likely to be permanent. And if it is, now is your time to do something about it.
Sure, it's fine and honourable to manufacture alcohol for hand cleansing and rent cars for free to medical staff, how about helping 380K people get food safely and timely without you moaning about the supermarkets being swamped and you not being able to handle the demand. Deal with the demand upfront!
Can you sense my frustration? 😜
This situation is going to be a real stress-test for all organization around the globe.
So far, everything is working well in our team, and we manage to be as productive as in the open space. Meeting happens through Teams, docs are shared on Office365, and Whatapps replace the coffee machine, for small talks and huddles. However, we are in for a marathon, here... so let's hope everyone manage to cope with this way of working for the next 2 - 4 weeks...
I don't know if "it will permanently change how we work together", but I really hope it will make FWI companies realize that Digital transformation is just NOT an option. It can be an amazing opportunity when everything is fine (better Data management, smoother collaboration, freedom to work from home) and a real safety net when everything go south (just like today). In short, an ally.