Coronavirus – Business Continuity Policy

Networks Centre expresses their empathy and solidarity with all customers who are going through a difficult time for the second time with the November lockdown. As part of an industry identified by the UK Government as of a critical nature in support of our country’s IT and Telecommunications Industry, once again we re-iterate our commitment that we will remain open for business whilst at the same time taking every recommended precaution to protect staff.  We did this successfully during the first, longer lockdown and have come out in good shape as a business.

Summarising the key points to mitigate as far as we are able, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic:

i) Working closely with our suppliers & customers to manage any changes in the supply chain. (There have been minimal impacts to date on customers relating to supply chain)

ii) Continuation of good workplace hygiene practices

iii) Cancelling all face-to-face meetings, travel (except deliveries) and using Microsoft Teams

iii) For essential workplace staff, maintaining social distancing rules at all times and wearing of masks.

v) Flexing our infrastructure assets across the group (Offices / Warehouses/ vehicles)

vi) Staff are physically separated into two fully integrated teams including toilet and other facilities. Routes are marked accordingly.

The second lock down is much shorter than the first and we are better prepared but remain vigilant.

Suppliers and Second Sourcing

We are in daily contact with our suppliers who are based in many locations across the Far East, Americas and Mainland Europe. At the time of writing we have had no reports of delays to shipments from any region. As a major distributor, we have alternate brands for the vast majority of products and hold in excess of £4m stock at our warehouses in the South East. At existing run rates, if manufacturing supplies were to completely cease, we estimate that we would be able to continue to supply for several months for standard products if customers are flexible and accept similar alternate products.

Infrastructure Flexing

Networks Centre group operates from two office locations and two warehouses. Whilst separate group businesses, we use common IT systems and procedures so would be able to transfer functions between office locations in the case where one office was severely affected. Similarly we could flex our warehousing to some extent in the same way. We have our own fleet of delivery vehicles to facilitate stock moves.

Labour Continuity

Networks Centre staff are all directly employed, not contract. We anticipate that delivery drivers (both deliveries to Networks Centre and from Networks Centre to Customers) will be at higher risk, coming into contact with multiple people in multiple locations. We employ our own drivers but also have couriers deliver. If a driver is off work we do have staff who can cover and we own our fleet of delivery vehicles but inevitably this could have a detrimental effect on service. Our couriers, DHL & TNT have their own policies on Covid-19 continuity which can be found here: https://www.dhl.co.uk/en/important_information/covid_19.html
https://www.tnt.com/express/en_gb/site/alerts.html

For our office & warehouse based staff, we are taking additional precautions to protect them which have been notified to staff including:

·         Attendance to all external meetings and events by staff is suspended.

·         Video conferencing or telecon will be used in all cases.

·         Non-essential visitors to our offices are prohibited and essential visitors, e.g. maintenance and IT staff will be temperature checked if required to enter the building.

·         Staff are required to check their temperature daily and sign a declaration. Any raised temperature, loss of taste or new dry cough will require testing and self-isolation for the prescribed period as per the Government advice (link below). Any staff member who lives with someone with Coronavirus symptoms will be required to self-isolate and work from home.

·         Providing more hand washing facilities, tissues, as well as sanitiser and face masks for all staff.

·         Closing communal areas like canteens.