Dear Clients,
As we are all carefully watching the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) situation, Symphony Systems is actively taking steps to ensure the safety of our team and the continuity of our operations. We’ve had disaster preparedness and business continuity plans in place for events such as natural disasters and pandemics for some time, and we’ve designed our business to withstand these occurrences with minimal impact to our services to our clients. As part of our ongoing preparedness with respect to the COVID-19 spread, we are activating business continuity plans to periodically test our team members’ remote work capabilities. This is done to ensure we maintain service levels and resolution times, regardless of where our team members or clients are physically located.
We want to assure you that we do not anticipate significant disruptions to our operations as a result of the Coronavirus. Our services can be rendered almost entirely remotely or cloud-hosted, and we have redundancies across our resources, tools, partner firms, and suppliers should any be impacted.
We’d like to address some specific aspects of, and enhancements to, our services, that we believe will support your business’s operations and success during this time.
- As you know, our services can be rendered almost entirely remotely. Even those of you who have received our remote services might be surprised at the services that can be performed that way.
- Along those same lines, we can enable your workforce to work remotely, too, if you decide that’s in the best interest of your employees and customers. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive the tools can be and how easy the learning curve can be for your staff. Many vendors of remote-work solutions have stepped up and offered free services during this outbreak.
- When your employees are working from home, rest assured we’re as prepared to assist them as ever. Let’s make sure they are able to reach us. As you deploy team members remotely, make sure they have our contact information so their work is not hindered by technical issues.
- While our clients understand that Symphony Systems will maintain the same pricing and service quality under any circumstances, they also likely are aware that not all of their vendors will hold to that principle. Beyond our assurance that we don’t engage in opportunistic practices, we also want to help you understand when any of your tech vendors are and help you find alternatives and solutions that meet your business needs in a way that’s fair and ethical.
- Along those same lines, please be alert for pandemic-related scams you might encounter via email, web, fax, text, and phone. Bad actors might send emails with malicious attachments or links to fraudulent websites to trick victims into revealing sensitive information or donating to fraudulent charities. Exercise caution in handling any email with a COVID-19-related subject line, attachment, or link, and be wary of social media pleas, texts, or calls related to COVID-19. Refer to trusted sources for up-to-date, fact-based information about COVID-19. (We’ll communicate more about this soon.) Do not reveal personal or financial information in email. Verify a charity’s authenticity before making donations. Take a look at this document by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for more info.
- Looking to the future is difficult in the midst of such uncertainty, but let’s do our best and make sure we anticipate problems and prepare with solutions. The more widespread this outbreak becomes, the greater we can expect the circumstances around us to change. Making sure our crucial business data is safely and redundantly backed up is important even under the best of circumstances. As the actions of individuals and groups become less predictable, safeguarding business information becomes more important.
- Many of our clients rely on their websites not only to market their products and services, but also to communicate with customers and others. We can help make sure your digital presence is up and running reliably and that issues that do arise are corrected promptly. Let’s plan for that in advance.
- We’ll communicate again soon with pointers to some reliable web-based resources that will enable your business and all of us as individuals to manage this developing situation as effectively as possible.
We understand that the rapidly evolving situation is causing uncertainty, and we am encouraging our team members and our community to put their health and wellbeing first so that we can continue to operate effectively and help prevent the spread of disease.
Rest assured, Symphony Systems is well-positioned and prepared to work through this pandemic. Although we feel our plan is good for our colleagues, clients, and community, we will certainly not be perfect as we move through this situation. We ask for your patience and feedback so we can serve you in the best possible way as this unprecedented situation progresses.
Stay safe and healthy,
Grant Hoover
Grant Hoover is founder and Senior Consultant at Symphony Systems.