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I feel extremely lucky to be living in a country whose healthcare and resources are amongst the best in the world. But there's no getting away from the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented, hugely disruptive and likely to cause widespread economic fallout. And most significantly, many fatalities.
There are heartbreaking accounts of struggle coming out of parts of Europe and increasing challenges here in Australia with critical resources spread very thin. Both in Australia and Europe, I have family members and friends working on the frontline in hospitals treating and caring for patients as best they can.
But in between the press conferences and endless news feeds, it's been heartening to see stories of the business community lifting each other up, people helping out their neighbours and offering small kindnesses. Like many others, I spent a period of time feeling rather helpless, asking what - other than taking care of my pregnant wife and young son - can I do to help other Australians in their time of need?
Like many business owners, I've had to focus through this anxious and uncertain time on preparing the Wiise business for impending lockdown. In particular, the need to remain productive and continue to grow while working remotely for an unknown period.
We appreciated very quickly that being a cloud software business puts Wiise in a very fortunate position. We already work agile and have teams spread across Sydney, Canberra and Manila. We have a flexible workforce that can access their work and stay in touch from home. And we use multiple cloud-based collaboration tools for operating the business. This means we can deliver business as usual in an otherwise very unusual time.
Our customers are luckily in the same position as us. Using our cloud ERP software, housed in Australian data centres, to run their business from anywhere. This takes some of the struggle out of switching to remote work. That's make or break in the current environment.
What's pivotal for us at Wiise is helping businesses get up and fight back. This is our calling! We have a product that can genuinely help businesses operate productively and navigate these uncertain times.
As a nation of small businesses, we need to work together and support each other, to build financial and operational resilience. We have no choice. Financial resilience is about your business' ability to pay employees, suppliers and overheads. And operational resilience is about the business processes, tech infrastructure and people you need to continue to operate. It's time to focus on what's important, trust our teams and enable them to keep doing what they do best.
There are a number of economic support packages out there to help on the financial side, with the Government and banks ramping up to lend.
On the operational side, it's patently clear that if you aren't operating from the cloud now, you need to be. There are businesses all over Australia crippled by aging infrastructure, 'that server in the corner of the office that we kept putting off replacing', who are now paying the price.
If that's you, Wiise can help. We're ready to get you set up, so you can focus on what's important right now.
So please get in touch, we'd love to do our bit to help SMBs fight back.