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Editorial
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EDITORIAL
The end in sight?
As our period of lockdown looks like it’s beginning to come to an end, what have we learned from the time we’ll remember as “Around the House in 100+days”...?
When the country first went into lockdown we couldn’t have imagined that it would last as long as it has. As the Prime Minister announced the preventative measure to stay home on March 23rd there were plenty of us who initially thought not only about hoarding toilet roll, but also about what to do with all the evenings off and some with their furloughed days too. I for one became a master of the ukulele, put on weight, saved a fortune in petrol, watched all the Marvel films in order and kept the garden very tidy. You might also have a new skill as you found extra time on your hands. You probably added hosting conference calls and Zoom-type meetings to your skillset. Unfortunately, if your meetings were anything like mine, there will have been a few video calls when you spent the entire time looking at someone’s ceiling or straight up their nose as their camera positioning was a little off. Webinar watching was also the done thing for a time as was visiting virtual exhibitions, but they just didn’t have that ‘personal’ feel.
Business wise there was a slowdown in lockdown for those operating in the service industries, and some in the security sector did not dodge that bullet either. Our trade shows, for example, were all cancelled until 2021 despite the hopeful initial postponements to September 2020. It is the right move as exhibitors and visitors would have faced difficult decisions in whether to attend or not with social distancing restrictions. As stated earlier, trade shows thrive on personal interaction and if you can’t see faces or shake hands it all becomes rather sterile. Touching elbows just isn’t the same and the need for hand sanitising on every visited stand wouldn’t be fun by Day Three.
But business is coming back now and not only for people making masks. There have been some (see Interview in this edition) that have kept busy throughout the last four months and many manufacturers and distributors have stayed buoyant providing supplies and service where needed - well done all. The lack of trade shows means that PSI is receiving high numbers of calls from companies wishing to promote the products they had hoped to show in the May, then September, events which is a great sign of a strong sector ready to bounce back.
We’re now all wearing masks to make everyone feel safe and to try and get the public out of the house and into shops so that the retail economy can pick up. Barring a second major lockdown the signs are there for a recovery and when it comes to security, installers I have spoken to in the last few weeks are reporting that projects are starting up again. Good news at last.
