It is no longer news that businesses are feeling the impacts of Coronavirus outbreak globally. From political leaders to business owners, various measures have been deployed since the virus became pandemic, according to the World Health Organisation. The measures are constantly updated when one or two seem not to be effective in containing the virus. There is no doubt businesses and individuals expect the concerned stakeholders in the public sector to stop the spread as soon as possible.
Various accounts indicate that for a virus to be pandemic and inflicting severe impacts on people and businesses, it must emerge, able to infect human and spread among the human. Coronavirus has actually possessed all these features and causing business and economic disruption, particularly for the businesses and countries that have not prepared for the disruption. Though, it is hard to predict how severe a pandemic could be. Experts say political and business leaders must always have business risk and continuity plans. For instance, “a flu pandemic in 1918 was unusually strong, leading to about 40 million deaths worldwide, while pandemics in 1957 and 1968 were responsible for 2 million and 1 million deaths respectively.” In a recent interview, an expert with the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States says “Complacency is really the enemy here. “We can’t predict when a pandemic will occur, but we know they do occur and they occur in every century.”
Exhibit 1: Flash Playbook for the Industry and Stakeholders
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For the facilities management solution providers, complacency could be catastrophic because organisations and individual users of their solutions need to maintain uninterrupted operations. In our experience, we have understood that public have developed ‘connected interest’ in facilities management and continuity of businesses and personal activities, especially in the residential places across the country. We discovered 85.9% linkage of facilities management and continuous activities (of businesses and individuals). Analysis further shows that facilities management has been viewed along with coronavirus by 46% from January 1st, 2020 to March 24, 2020.
In our earlier analysis, we reported specific information some players in the industry want their clients and the general public to follow. Alpha Mead, a Nigeria-based Total Real Estate Solution company, developed steps facilities managers and workers need to follow to avert contracting the virus. A few days after the development of the steps, the company has suspended some of its operational and core activities to the client, saying “it remains optimistic of an early return to normalcy.”
Our checks have also shown that some companies in the industry are following this step. Tsebo has equipped its employees with Covid-19 compliance aprons. This is particularly applicable to employees working in clients’ locations where essential services or products are being offered to the people and businesses. As the total lockdown looms in Nigeria, our analyst expects decrease in the revenue and/or profit of the players this year.
