Last week, Microsoft posted an article on their commitment to customers and business continuity. Microsoft is taking steps to help customers keep running with Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. Their priority is the seamless delivery of Business Applications service for customers and ensuring that their response teams are available to help. Their work is critical to all businesses, especially companies on the front line dealing with the COVID-19 crisis such as government agencies, hospitals, food and life science companies. Microsoft is doing everything in their power to deliver a great response plan to this pandemic, continuing to drive critical updates and achieve the right balance between innovation and safe deployment. We stand with Microsoft, and have a lot of confidence that as the providers of critical line of business applications, they will do everything possible to ensure customers have uninterrupted access and don’t get burdened with unnecessary workloads during a time where there are bigger priorities.
Catapult is a proud partner of Microsoft and echoes the same message to our customers and community – we’re here to help in whatever way that we can. We’re working through our own support team to ensure customers are well supported on their SaaS and Azure hosted solutions. We know that businesses are trying their hardest to navigate COVID-19, and we want to make things as easy as possible for our customers. Being a digital business ourselves, we are fortunate to have had in place the technology and systems infrastructure to collaborate and continue providing support in all the usual ways. We are available and ready to assist with any need from end user assistance to troubleshooting and critical solution enhancements that will help teams work more efficiently through these challenging times.
It would be an understatement to say these last few weeks have been challenging for everyone. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the world we’re starting to witness a global health, humanitarian and economic crisis. This pandemic has implications for everyone, and for those most vulnerable in our communities those implications are life-changing.
Economists are struggling to come up with accurate predictions as to what might be coming – how can any of us truly foresee the path this pandemic will take? But one thing is clear, that the picture they’re painting for the future of Canada’s economy is not a positive one, with the GDP anticipated to take a massive hit. It is during unprecedented times such as these that it’s critical for organizations to do all they can to remain agile and make sure their employee’s livelihoods are the number one priority.
Organizations across the world are having to adapt the way they operate in response to this pandemic. The notion of working from home has often received varying levels of acceptance from organizations. Companies in certain more traditional industries may tend to look askance at remote work, and rarely offer the opportunity to their employees. Emerging industries — especially some in the technology sector — have made remote work a critical component of their cultures, allowing flexibility for their employees to get work done anywhere, and promoting balance between the needs of work and life. Whatever side of the fence you fall on, this once optional style of working is now becoming a necessity for businesses that are able to adapt to this style of working. Granted this is vast sectors of the economy, but of course working remotely isn’t an option for all types of businesses such as those on a shop floor or serving retail customers. These types of companies are finding impressive new ways to adapt such as restaurants offering special pick up and delivery services.
Businesses across all industries are starting to settle into the new way of managing their lives and work. Whether you’re a small or medium business trying to remain agile and afloat or a large company trying its hardest to support communities and protect those most vulnerable. As we all try our hardest to navigate these uncharted waters, it’s important to remember that we’re all in this together.
Despite the struggles we’re bearing witness to, we’re inspired and humbled by how quickly workplaces have reorganized to keep business flowing. While many businesses, especially those in retail and hospitality are feeling the impact very directly, we are also seeing a huge commitment to keep the wheels of the economy moving as best we can. Now more than ever, it’s critical for organizations to do all they can to remain agile and flexible. Focus on what’s critical for your business and redirect your team’s efforts accordingly. Understand and take solace in the fact that we will come out of this crisis. And first and foremost – look after the well-being of your employees. Do all you can to keep them at work so they can support our economy and continue to support it once we bounce back from this pandemic.
