OMNI COVID-19 BULLETIN – AUSTRALIA

Steve Alves from Kent in Australia looks at the ways in which COVID-19 has affected his business and lessons for the future.

We have 13 offices in 12 cities in Australia, each with different degrees of lockdown status. Victoria, of course, has suffered more than other states and, at the time of writing, is still in lockdown following an outbreak. The Victorian border is sealed but we can still perform moves as most freight travels by rail.

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Suddath Announces Jira Sansom as General Manager Dallas

Suddath today announced Jira Sansom as the new general manager for its Dallas-Fort Worth branch.

Sansom is a motivated leader with over 20 years of experience in operations and logistics. He joins Suddath with a wealth of distribution experience and leadership standards from some of the most well-known brands in the U.S. Before joining Suddath, Sansom worked as a supply chain specialist at Martin Brower and before that, he served as general manager of distribution and logistics at Ryder in Hutchins, Texas.

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OMNI COVID-19 BULLETIN – SOUTH AFRICA

Charl Pienaar, looks at the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affected Stuttaford Van Lines in South Africa, and takes a glimpse into the future.

It was on the 5th March that South Africa was put under total lockdown. We were not considered to be an essential service, so the business was completely closed for 41 days. We opened again on 7th of May. It’s ironic that, when we closed we only had 1 case of COVID-19 in the country, now we have had 216,000 cases, are nearing the peak of the virus, and are back working normally, with the obvious precautions. Fortunately for us, we are a very young nation with only 5% of the population being over 60.

It’s been difficult and still is. The borders are still closed and there are no international flights other than for repatriation. It’s very difficult to get bookings on vessels. China was our biggest trading partner so, now there are fewer inbound vessels, outbound space is at a premium. It’s an awkward situation.

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OMNI COVID-19 BULLETIN – THE NETHERLANDS

Wouter Hijzen, Managing Director of De Haan in The Netherlands, looks at the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his business and lessons for the future COVID-19 is not the first crisis we’ve seen since our company was formed in 1777. It probably won’t be the last either. The first contract we signed was with the Emperor Napoleon and, over the years, we have seen our fair share of good times and bad. But we survived and we fully intend to be here in another 250 years.

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OMNI COVID-19 BULLETIN – INDIA

Al Mithal looks at the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his business and lessons for the future.

It’s been approaching three months since India went into one of the strictest lockdowns seen anywhere in the world and, for me, the strain is beginning to tell.  Not so much for the business, which is getting by, but personally.  As someone who has spent most of the last 40 years travelling to conferences and visiting clients, I do feel that I am getting a little stir crazy.

We didn’t expect this.  From 24th March nobody was allowed to go to work (unless they were an essential business), and we were confined to our houses, not even able to go out for essential supplies, they were all delivered to us.  My wife, my elderly mother and I have been isolated in our 15th-storey condominium in Delhi.  Just how many books can you read and how much Netflix can you watch?

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OMNI COVID-19 BULLETIN – THE NETHERLANDS

Robert Voerman talks about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his business what the future possibly holds

We first realised we had a problem in mid-March.  The government put a lockdown in place on Sunday night and we had to quickly work out how to get everyone working from home. Of course, home working works better for some than others, so we had to work out what was best for each individual, As we have experience with working from home in our offices in Eastern Europe & Africa we were able to switch quickly to this new way of working in The Netherlands. Key has been the technology of RedSky which enables us to all work from home.

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