Following on from our recent Parking Talks and Quick Questions dedicated to gaining insight into the effect that Covid-19 has had on the parking industry, we ask what adaptations have businesses made to combat the challenges we face during these difficult times. From adapting to working from home and preparing workspaces for social distancing to minimizing disruption in manufacturing and distribution and even taking the opportunity to give back to our communities – our parking experts share their thoughts, ideas, and experiences during this Quick Question.
Brian Wolff, CEO, and President of Parker Technology
“The biggest adaptation that I have made is the switch from an audio-only conference call to video-call. I am surprised by how comfortable I have become using two-way video myself, and how important it has become to me that I have can see my colleagues and my customers via video rather than just doing an audio-only conference call.”
Nick D'Alessio, Senior Business Development Manager at Brother Mobile Solutions
“We’ve had to do some creative things during these challenging times. Our process operations managers have cleverly organized our warehouse so that our workers can maintain the recommended social distancing guidelines. Additionally, shifts have been assigned for restrooms with different entrances and different lunch areas, so if someone gets sick on one of the shifts, we only have to quarantine that one shift, allowing the other shifts to continue to operate. This has served us very well, allowing us to keep supplying customers with our products.”
Vijay Sondhi, CEO of NMI
“Our number one priority is the health and safety, and wellness of our employees so that we can serve our partners and our end-merchants. I didn’t know that we could have a 200 person company running 100%, from home, within 2 days. But when we had to, we were able to, including the folks who work on our card-present credit card reader part of the business. They were actually taking Ingenico terminals to their homes and moving their desktops into their living rooms, or home offices if they are lucky enough, and were able to run those test scripts with test cards and iPhones and Google Pay, what have you. So overall, I’m pretty happy with how it all worked out”
Jeff Perkins, Chief Marketing Officer at ParkMobile
“During this challenging time, the team has been on the phone with our municipal clients daily, sharing best practices about what cities across the country can do in response to COVID-19. And we are using the ParkMobile app to raise money for charity. People can make donations through the app, and we have raised over $30,000 in the past 4 weeks for several different local charities, so we are trying to help and make a difference during this difficult time.”
Joe Survance, Senior Vice President of Sales at Cleverciti
“The pandemic, not my favorite subject, and probably not yours. It has affected us both personally and professionally. For many years now I have been able to blend my schedule between the office and home office environments, the transition has been easy. Our industry, unfortunately, has taken a hit but the good news is that parking will come out of this stronger than ever. Estimates project that personal vehicle usage will dramatically increase while mass transit and TNCs will see a significant decrease in ridership.”
Sara Fisher, Commercial Manager (UK) at Ballast Nedam Parking
“We swiftly implemented our business continuation plans for both our UK office staff and construction site teams where additional COVID-19 safety measures were required. Juggling work and homeschooling is a huge challenge, but I am delighted to say that despite the pressure we are all coping well. In fact, the situation seems to have resulted in an even more determined team spirit. Our suppliers continue to support us which is enabling us to complete live projects.”
Simon Wood, International Partner Manager at CCV
“At CCV, adapting to the new COVID world has been about not panicking and about taking reasonable steps to keep short term costs down. Also using the opportunity to complete projects that are normally hard to get to will pay dividends when we are back on track. I have found it great to schedule dedicated time to think about opportunities that will come out of the new normal.”
Laura Caillot, General Manager at survision
“We have done everything we can to maintain our operations and guarantee products and services to our partners. Thanks to the fact that our LPR cameras are manufactured close to our offices we were able to quickly send additional stocks to our warehouses. The logistics team has been present throughout to ship products while the rest of the company is working from home. We are proud of the fact that we are keeping 100% of our employees and we are still hiring more.”
Adrian Cseko, Sales Manager at Asura Technologies
“Asura Technologies is a technological company so fortunately system development was an easy thing to move to the home office. As a Hungarian company we did most of our discussions with partners and customers online, so there was no big change in our daily lives. It was business as usual from day one of the home office set up. What we do miss, however, is being together with the team, and meeting peers, partners, and customers at events, so we are looking forward to being free to travel again.”
Dennis Pintamalli, Managing Director for EMEA at ADVAM
“I think we’ve adapted quite well to COVID-19, from a work perspective it has been quite good. We have a very strong team and they can adapt well and work well from home. Obviously, the biggest challenge has been having two young children in the house. So trying to split between work and family but I think it has worked out well.”
