Dear clients, partners and friends,
First and foremost, I hope you, your family and loved ones are safe and well.
It seems a little clichéd to suggest our business has encountered unprecedented times, but no other words more aptly define this profound and unsettling experience.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world as we know it. In the course of a few weeks, our lives have effectively been paused as we work together to mitigate the exponential spread of this disease.
Mirroring the collective efforts of society, governments and the global economy, Airwave’s management team has driven systemic and structural changes across the business, ensuring that we continue to support our customers, whilst protecting the integrity of the business and the safety of our staff.
Our marketing and communication function has taken a brief hiatus over the last few weeks, in part to concentrate efforts in other areas of the business, but also to respect the sensitivity of the situation. Rest assured though, we are still here to service our customers’ needs – and we’re busier than we’ve ever been…
Positive Action
Ahead of an increasingly imminent lockdown, we triaged our business activities, swiftly introducing a WFH policy and making the difficult decision to furlough a number of staff – retaining a skeleton team of about 20 to cover SLA obligations and manage our healthcare division (I am delighted to report that, despite the uncertainty of the last few weeks, our technical team has worked on a very much “business as usual” basis, servicing all incoming enquiries).
We undertook rigorous H&S and PPE training, ensuring all field engineers were fully equipped with PPE and the autonomy to walk away from sites that couldn’t offer credible and strict social distancing.
We offered a 3-month payment holiday to a number of hotel customers on opex payment schedules. Whilst not an ideal situation, we are fortunate to benefit from the financial strength of the SCCI group of companies (and the continuing efforts of Airwave Healthcare) and recognise that many of our customers don’t have this luxury.
In collaboration with Sky Business, we donated TV technology to the Nightingale Hospital at London Excel – whilst this gift was nominal in value, I felt great personal pride in being able to help our incredible National Health Service.
Increasing the Product Portfolio
We believe that the post coronavirus environment will see hotels adapting their service offering to cater for stringent infection control and hygiene protocol.
With this in mind, we collaborated with industry partners and curated a portfolio of infection control products that will help mitigate the spread of germs and infection.
Notable additions to our product inventory include Otrum’s Virtual Remote Control, Philips’ PeopleCount, sanitiser-dispensing Android signage displays and a food ordering app, designed and built by Airwave Technical Director, Julian Arnold (to be released imminently).
We continue to look for products that will best serve our customers in this changing environment and will evolve our portfolio in line with Covid-19’s journey.
The Future?
It seems a little early to predict the future of both our business and society, however I am convinced that we have the resilience and togetherness to learn, grow and become stronger.
I’ve been particularly heartened by the empathy and community spirit I see on a daily basis, not just in my own village but across the country….and of course within my own very talented team.
If you have any questions or need any assistance, please get in touch. We’re here to help.
David Fogelman, SCCI Group CEO
