Dear Friends,
This isn’t business as usual, it’s a time of great stress and uncertainty. It’s also a moment in time when the work we’re doing is most critical.
Across the world, people, companies, and governments are feeling the economic effects of this crisis, and I’m sad to tell you that as per projections by various economic bodies globally things are going to get even worse before they get better.
Earlier last week, I updated you all during my personal interaction at each floor the steps we are taking to protect our people, our customers, and our business amid the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. In just a few days since, the situation has worsened considerably, with 20 confirmed cases in Myanmar, all international borders have been sealed for travel, heightened government travel restrictions, including a 30-day ban to continental Europe, lockdown in India, Malaysia, etc.
The speed of the demand fall-off is unlike anything we’ve seen; we are moving quickly to preserve cash and protect our company. And with revenues dropping, we must be focused on taking costs out of our business. In order to do this, we are taking difficult but determined actions to protect the financial position of the company. These include:
- Seeking discounts/waivers from partners and service providers
- Complete hiring freeze at all levels
- Rationalizing salaries, there will more difficult measures in days ahead and many of us will be directly impacted.
- No capital expenditure unless absolutely necessary for business continuity
- Optimization in daily operating costs – we have closed the ground floor of our office, an hourly electricity cut, the lift is now operational only for the top floor.
We’ll be making more critical decisions on our response in days to come. The situation is fluid and likely to be getting worse. But what hasn’t changed is – Oway remains better-positioned to weather a storm of this magnitude than ever before. We’ve spent the whole of 2019 building a strong, resilient Company powered by the best people (You). We will get through this, and taking strong, decisive action now will ensure that we are properly positioned to recover our business when customers start to travel again.
In the coming days and weeks, I ask all of you to see what you can do to increase revenues for your company or help us save cash.
Above all, nothing is more important than the “YOU”, the safety and health of our employees. We have taken many steps to ensure we do whatever is in our control to protect us – this includes implementing work from home, disinfection of our office premises on a weekly basis, temperature check and hand sanitization for all, increased hand sanitizers across floors and sharing regular WHO advisory for better hygiene and safety.
I continue to be honored and humbled to lead this team. Thank you for all that you are doing, and will continue to do in the days ahead, to care for the Oway family and our customers.
Please take care of yourselves and your loved ones. I know that we’re going to get through this, together.
Lastly let’s stay hopeful & optimistic that “GOOD WILL CONTINUE”, wish you all a very happy and safe Myanmar new year & Thingyan 2020.
Stay home & Stay safe!
Love,
Alok
CEO – Oway