3 minute read
Staying Connected and Engaged With Each Other is Important
Claude Schuck, Regional Manager, Middle East at Veeam Software, speaks about how COVID-19 has impacted business and the contingency plans the company has put in place in case the crisis persists or gets escalated
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During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?
Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our employees, our customers and partners, and the well-being of our community. At Veeam, we have imposed a work-from-home policy to limit the potential spread of infection. This virtual model is not unusual for Veeam as the majority of our employees work remotely anyway, but to ensure everyone’s health and well-being, we have closed our offices until further notice and asked everyone to work from home. Despite the current situation, our daily operations have not been impacted that badly. This is largely due to two reasons. The first is, at a time like this when regional organizations are mandated to have employees working from home, technology solutions like Veeam that address cloud data management and data security are seeing maintained interest. Secondly, within the Middle East we are fortunate to have an established and experienced team. We have an in-depth understanding of our customers’ specific needs and requirements for them to drive success and business continuity, which is why organizations continue to rely on us.
What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?
As we continue to implement our business continuity processes, Veeam is operating as normal. Partners and customers are continuing to receive the exemplary levels of service that they are used to, and we are leveraging all the technologies at our disposal to engage and support our community. I mentioned that our community comes first in everything that we do. This is why we have decided to make our company’s annual user event - VeeamON 2020 – a little different this year. It was originally planned to take place in Las Vegas in May, but we’ve decided to host a virtual event instead – June 17 - 18. Veeam aims to bring the same level of content, insight and the rich user experience that attendees have come to expect from VeeamON through a virtual environment. Looking at how we are helping our customer operate, as organizations adapt to rapidly evolving working conditions, Veeam helps them ensure that they are able to maintain business continuity by seamlessly protecting their remote workers’ workstations and productivity tools like Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams along with the rest of their cloud, virtual and physical workloads. Veeam offers many of these software and services free of charge that can be of value to businesses; this freemium model is part of our DNA, and we want to ensure that we help our community protect their data no matter their size or location. Veeam has also adapted its own business practices to ensure that the company’s support teams are available and able to help customers with any issues. Veeam’s R&D teams are continuing their pace of building innovative products that make managing data as simple, flexible and reliable as possible.
Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?
It’s very important for the team to stay connected and engaged with each other. I make sure as far as possible that we connect with each other regularly on the phone or via video conference and not just talk about work but also about everyday life and world happenings. This mirrors the chats that we have with each other at the coffee machine or water cooler in the office which fosters good working relationships. We need to stay as grounded as possible and social interactions across the Middle East team has really helped keep up the morale, vigor and energy during challenging times like this. It’s actually inspiring to see how creative our teams are in this new way of working, and how they are adapting to this ‘new normal’. For example, the creativity on video calls by way of developing a theme for each call – wear green, dress up, bring your child to call. It has really galvanized the teams.
