IMPROVE YOUR CUSTOMER CARE OR DIE

The other day I ordered a delivery. I ordered it early in enough in the moring and thought by midmorning I should have taken delivery. Hours came and went and nothing happened. Calls to the supplier were met with deafening silence.

Eventually they turned up, after 5pm. Long stories about failing phone battery and having to walk all the way from Nansana ensued.

The icing on the cake? Could I pay him extra because he would have to take a boda boda to beat the curfew?

 

The reality of the corona crisis is that nothing is going to be the same again.

 

For eons us poor customers have suffered terrible customer service from our suppliers.

Forget about going the extra mile, just the basics of courtesy, cleanliness and timeliness are alien to our businesses, and then they complain that the economy is doing badly!

After the lockdown with cash at a premium, we will not tolerate just anything for our kamoney, which has survived corona. Here below are a fast and ready list on customer service that may alleviate the plight of us the long suffering clients, while keeping your till ringing.

1.Mean what you say, say what you mean

Nothing is as annoying as buying a good or service and it doesnt work as advertised. There are a few of us who will give you an earful for doing us wrong, but there is also a big a number who will not say anything and you will never see them again -- nor their friends or relatives.

It is a cliche in business that it is cheaper, and therefore more profitable, hanging on to existing clients than getting new ones. Believe it.

Competition is real if you have a client he is yours until he finds a better provider, why allolw him to have his head turned?

2. We dont owe you anythinig

So you opened your shop at 6 in the morning after being open till 11 pm the previous night. You have a flooding problem, anti the rain so we should bare with you wading through the aisles, you will mop later. That we should have waited for you  to come, since you were held up somewhere and couldnt open shop at the usual time.

Because what? Because you are the only one doing what you do? Because you have been a round a long time we should only buy from you? Because .... Sorry it doesn't work like that.

 In a world of infinite choices, things to do and places to be, we want convenience not have to do mathematical probabilities.

We dont owe you anything, after all we are paying.

3.You are not alone

The beautiful ones are not yet born. You may be the flavour of the month now but that may not be for very long. You need to invest in you and your business. My favourite  businessman, I have said before is Charlie Lubega. When he took over Ange Noire Discotheque he was literally the only game in town. But regardless he made a concious and visible effort to regularly upgrade his venue, be it improve the music, the deco, the cleanliness. And all this he did when there wasnt any real competition on the horizon.

 

He effectivley raised the barrier to entry, 

sending many a discotheque to their graves before they had gained traction. Ange Noire was the gold standard. Is it any surprise it is the last man standing?

 

Thats how you need to be thinking about your business. Essentially take the long view, invest in improving the customer experience and we will repay your with our loyalty and our kamoney left over from corvid.

4.Around noon doesnt cut it

The story of the money who turns up for a meeting at noon. When reminded that it was scheduled for 11 am he retorted. "It is around that time!"

 

Keeping time is not a mzungu thing. Keeping time, is the courtesy you extend to your partner. It says you value their time and you will not waste it. It says you are grateful and grateful to be given the opportunity to meet . Keeping time says you are reliable and can be trusted with lesser things like money and responsibility.

And if you can't make the appointment call ahead, preferably before the alloted hour to say you are running late.

5. Talk to us

Related to the last point we understand things don't always go accordning to plan and you cannot deliver as expected. We will be chaffed but give you the benefit of doubt if you keep us abreast of progress. We would rather you underpromise and overdeliver than the reverse.

I dont know anyone who likes excuses. Just get the job done. But if you can't, let us know in good time, because we too are managing the expectations of our clients and significant others. 

6. The extra mile

Those are the basics and when you have ticked them off, you can't rest on your laurels. You dont want contented customers, you want customers  who will champion your cause. And the truth is it doesnt take very much to keep your customers singing your praises. Technology can help.

Now with more and more people using debit cards and mobile money, your customers need not be nameless individuals who stream in and out of your shop. You have their name, their phone numbers and record of how regular they are to your shop and what they tend to buy.All this data can create an intimacy that can be capitalised on. 

It bogles the mind that not more supermarkets have loyalty cards. Which offer bonunses or discounts for repeat customers. Eben the shops that have them are too mechanical, leaving the task to the machine adn not introducing a human touch to the process.

Imagine theplesant suprise it would be if a call to regualr customer who is in the habit of buying curry powder oncec amonth is made around the time they normally do. I know a regular client of a supermarket who now swears by them because they offeredt o deliver her shopping during the lock down. A service they do not normally do, but because she had accumulated a ton of bonus points they would go the extra mile for her.

THE LOCK DOWN WILL END, WHAT TO DO?

It was an initiation ceremony. A rite of passage. Call it what you may.

It involved getting all the S1 boys to jump from the diving board into the pool about seven meters below.

For swimmers this would not be a problem, but for the senior boys lying in wait in the water, whose intention was to “dunk” the new entrants to the school when they hit the water.

I can not forget the feeling of running out of breath as they kept my head under water and the relief when I was tossed to the side of the pool sputtering, coughing and spitting.

Watching a video recently of covid-19 patient struggling for breath, reminded me of that time more than 30 years ago when I was fighting for breath underwater and yet there was none to be had.

Of course,

people with respiratory challenges know this reality all too well. I left mine behind in the school swimming pool.

I have no intention of repeating that experience in my life time, nor would I wish it on anyone else, except for … but that is a story for another day.

As we approach the lifting of the lock down that  memory is what keeps me in check. Social distancing will be key. Shaking hands, out. Hugs? How do you spell that? 

Knowing what we know now after more than two months of bombardment with corona virus messaging, we should not need anyone to tell us how to behave.

"President Yoweri Museveni when he does eventually lift the lockdown, most probably in phases for months to come, will be making a general prescription but we have an individual responsibility we can not abdicate to him....

While as a country we have been spared the health effects of contracting the disease – we have had 126 covid-19 cases at time of writing this, we have not been spared the economic downside.

A report released last week by the organisation Financial Sector Deepening, Uganda (fsd Uganda) showed that four in five of us could not maintain their normal lifestyle after just 15 days of lockdown.

I almost laughed the other day when someone said lifting the lockdown will mean we have survived the virus. As long as there are cases around the world a reopening of our borders and airports mean we will risk infection sometime in the future.

With the best estimates for the development of a viable vaccine seen late next year, it is clear we will live in fear of the disease for at least one more year.

A sharp spike in the infection rates may see the imposition of other lock downs in future.

"Unlike the other viral infection that sends chills down our spine, HIV/AIDS, if you contract Covid-19 you can spread it to your loved ones with not so much as a sneeze in their direction. Which makes personal responsibility even more urgent.

I fear that our low infection rate during this first wave has bred a complacency, which is setting us up for a higher infection rate during the second wave.

The Spanish flu of the early 20th century, which laid waste to western Europe, had a more fatal second wave because people came out jubilating in the streets after the lock down was lifted then.

We will have to restrain our relief and jubilation.

 

From a health perspective it is safe to say we have passed the first test, but that will count for nothing if infections increase rapidly and wipe out the gains of this first struggle.

The critics of the lockdown are loud but not overwhelming. As a society we have had to measure the risk of opening up versus the health risks.

Which brings me to another point. Madagascar has been helping all and sundry with their home made remedy for the disease, I hear they are going to start charging for it.

"The conventional health industry have threatened to laugh them out of town, as snake oil salesmen and worse. But the portion is in high demand on the continent, with countries as far afield as Guinea and  Mali signing up...

Given the circumstances a more appropriate reaction would be to study the drug’s efficacy in Madagscar and if found to have some promise, research its component parts to see what works or not.

But we know the huge investments made by the pharmaceutical companies can not allow for some home remedy to steal their thunder, unless it is promoted by themselves, of course.

I say give Madagascar’s concoction the benefit of doubt. This as I reach for my own concoction of honey, ginger, garlic, lemon and Mululusa all mixed in hot water.

EXISTING AT THE MERCY OF GOD

Last week President Yoweri Museveni extended the lock down for an additional two weeks. We had laready endured five weeks indoors.

The lockdown was intended to break the chain of infection. It seems to have suceeded in reducing the rate of infection in Uganda. 

At the time of writing we had just crossed the hundred positive test mark, more than a month after we registered our first positive test. Going by the curve of infections in other parts we should have hit the thousand-infection mark by now.

Already the government is being feted for its handling of the crisis.

That being said the damage to the economy has been severe. Production has shut down and demand has collapsed. It is unlike any other crisis in known history in the way it is affecting the whole world. No economy has been spared.

Last week the Financial Sector Deepening Uganda (FSD) released a report, "Assessing the economic resilience of Uganda househoulds before COVID" . 

The report compiled with the finance ministry, is the first to try and understand the capacity has the everyday man to cope in times of extreme economc stress. It also has some useful recommendations for mitigating against the worst effects of the lockdown and economic collapse for your man on the street.

Part 1 of the report that was released last week was based on a study done before the lockdown.

It was shocking to learn that

three quarters of Ugandan adults befor the lock down could not meet their living expenses, essentially most of us are living beyond our means...

It therefore came as little surprise then that 57% of us would not be able to sustain our lifestyle after one day in a lock down and 81% of us would fail the test after 15 days.

FSD also reported that the median amount of saving in cash was sh4,800. If we line up all our savings in order of quantity those with sh4,800 would be at the half way mark, basically that most of us have very little saved up.

So going into the lockdown at the beginning of April, most of the population was extremely vulnerable, so much so that it is estimated that at least three million people are going to regress, swelling the ranks of the eight million already living below the poverty line.

  

These disturbing figures are self explanatory, that for the majority of us life is not going to be the same again, at least in the short term, 23% of us are in danger of losing 100% of our income.

Beyond the dire numbers the report was useful in suggesting ways in which the everyday man's plight can be alleviated through governmnet intervention.

FSD suggests that

since a large proportion of the poor and middle class bank and borrow from savings groups, SACCOs and deposit taking financial institutions, that are a lower tier frrom the commercial banks, helping these stay liquid and viable is critical...

 
Fiscal policy, such as tax relief and grants, should be targetted at companies with strong employment retention and job expansion plans. In addition small retail and wholesale shops should be helped bounce back.

   
They recommended that online platforms, that have proved useful in distribution and linking small producers should be encouraged and fintech companies eg mobile money companies, which have proved useful in promoting financial deepening should be supported to grow and widen their reach.  Related to these efforts to increase telephone and internet deepening should be encouraged.

Older people who have been benefitting from the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (SAGE) have been left high and dry during the lock down and digitization of this process, would help maintain sustainability of this effort.

Finally they recommended unconditional cash grants for the most vulnerable, as a way to support them during the lock down and subsequent downturn and as a way to lift them out of poverty. Experience has shown that contrary to some opinions actually help the poor accumulate assets leading to self sufficiency.

Production has been shut down, as a result people have lost their jobs and livelihoods, as result they can't spend and therfore production will remain suppressed, a vicious cycle that has to be broken in order for the economy to recover.

It has been argued that inflationary fears are unwarranted as fiscal stimulus work in conditions of production overcapcity and joblessness.

During the last financial crisis western economies focused their bailout efforts on the big corporations, fearing that if they collapsed they would take the whole economy along with them. The critics warned that bailing out the big corproations would not ensure the trickle down effect that would help the poorest in the societies, but would instead save the few at the top of the pyramid....

Since then wealth and income inequalities have widened, forcing a rethink in the economic stimulus packages governments are resorting to today.
While the big companies will need some relief, for a more sustainable recovery the most vulnerable need to be direct beneficiaries through the finanacial institutions they patronise, improved internet access and in the most dire case cash handouts.

Finance ministry officials look on handouts with a jaundiced eye, fearing that they can not only be abused by implementing officers but can also create a dependency among the population that is not sustainable.

This crisis may very well be the opportunity the government needs to streamline their social protection mechanisms and put in place mechanisms to support ailing companies recover in ensuing economic shocks.

UGANDA DAIRY FARMERS CAUGHT IN KENYA, UGANDA CROSSFIRE

Since the end of last year dairy farmers in western Uganda have lost a major market of their produce as Kenyan authorities have locked out Ugandan milk.

The closure of the Pearl Dairy plant in Biharwe, along the Masaka-Mbarara road, in February has seen demand for milk collapse in Masindi in the west, Kabale in the south west and Isingiro in the south.

"In our area alone at least 1000 liters go to waste daily which has a downward effect on the pricec of milk in the Mbarara and Kiruhura areas, the price has fallen to sh200 from sh800 per liter last year," David Mwine the chairman of the Rukaka Savings & Credit Cooperative Society and a  dairy farmer in his own right.

"The whoe of this region is experiencing losses because farners can not meet their operational costs and are demoralised by the prices of milk. We dont have someone to buy the milk and we are giving it away free."

This is sad state of affairs for the region and the country.
Pearl Dairy's business model is to export up to 90 percent of its production, mostly to Kenya and sell the remainder locally. Its other markets are Rwanda, before the border closure a year ago and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This has come about because in Uganda, due to lax regulation only about a quarter of all milk produced is processed. In Kenya not only is milk consumptrion more than triple that in Uganda -- 140 liters versus 40 liters per person annually, there is a higher demand for processed milk, more than two thirds of the market is processed milk.

Overt the last three years Pearl Dairy has made significant in roads into the Kenyan market and as of last year, accounted for about a quarter of the milk market in Kenya.

Trouble begun at the end of last year when Kenyan authorities impounded Pearl Dairy's milk claiming it was counterfeit and turned back several of their consignments.

The Uganda government complained to their Kenyan counterparts and a 19-person Kenya team visited the country to ascertain that Uganda producecs all it exports, but the impasse has not been broken.

Hence the Biharwe factory's closure in February.
The ripple effect in the communities that supply the Pearl Dairy has been devastating.

Over the last two years of Pearl Dairy's operaion in the area, through their own extension services, some farmers increase more their yields to 11 liters a day per cow frrom the previous five liters. All this through better managment of their existing herds.

"We have been able to learn best dairy practices. I used to be pastoral farmer, grazing my cows over large areas, i no longer do that and my farm is now a commercial enterprise, my income frrom milk has gone up a lot," Raymond Kaweesi, a pioneer beneficiary of this initiative said.

He has been able to share the learnings and many farmers in his area have seen their fortunes improve as a result.
Pearl Dairy extension services reach more than 600 farms.

"This ecosystem of farmers, traders and transporters built to support the 800,000 liter a day plant, is in danger of being broken up....

"Some farmers have already slaughtered their herds and sold them for beef. Imagine what it will take to get the back into production? Not only in terms of money but also lost trust," a regional leader wondered on condition of anonymity.

It is not clear what the  problem is in Kenya.
Reports last year were that dairy darmers in Kenya had seen their farm gate pricecs falling signficantly as a result of the aggressive Ugandan entrants.

Existing big interests in the Kenyan market then decided to use underhanded methods to frustrate Uganda processors. They are clearly very powerful interests as no official communication has been forthcoming about Uganda dairy exports.

This is a blatant breach of East Africa Community protocals that allow for the frfee movement of goods and services around the five countries, that Nairobi is unwilling or unable to enforce in the case of dairy exports.

The dairty of western Uganda find themselves caught in the middle crossfire that is none of their making, that threatens to derail Uganda's emergence of a continental dairy producing nation.

Exports from dairy products roped in $150m  in 2019, bettered only by gold and coffee in export receipts.

FOR COMPANIES, TO GIVE OR HOW TO GIVE?

The current corona virus crisis has prompted a huge outpouring of corporate giving, a recognition that many will be hit very badly byt he slow down in the economy.

Initial giving was coordinated by New Vision CEO Robert Kabushenga and now being coordinated by the prime minister's office using the National Response Fund.
Billions of shillings in cash, goods and services.

Government's own initiative to provide some food -- maize flour and beans, to urban distressed kind of set the pace. One may argue about the procurement processes and amounts offered the recipients, butit was useful stimulus for others to start giving.

It was important that corporate Uganda decided to coordinate their actions in that way they would not suffer duplication and other uncoordinated troop movements.

According to the Income tax act companies can contibute up to five percent of their income to a charitable organisation that is set up to cause social advancement -- alleviate poverty, education, health among others.

So if a company makes a billion shillings in revenues it can contribute sh50m, which will count towards its expenses and therefore tax deductible.

Any amount beyond that threshold will not be tax deductible.

"Interestingly the US with its long philanthropic tradition allow individuals lee way to contribute up to 20% of their incomes and comanies 0.5% of annual sales. In Uganda individual donations are not tax deductible, which is a loss because in the US most donations -- seven in every ten dollars, are contributed by individuals...

The question of how much one company has contributed viz-a-viz another has been burning the wires. Reasonable concerns, if to those who much is given much will be expected.

The bigger question for me is the nature of the giving and whether it achieves the intended purpose of alleviating the affected persons suffering.

So telecom giant, MTN for instance have contributed about two billion shillings to the covid-19 effort. About half of it was in hard cash, the rest was in form of media space, help to National Water & Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) to provide water stands in water stressed areas of Kampala, support to the Uganda Red Cross and to fit and put a call center at the dispoal of the health ministry.

We shouldnt forget that MTN waived all fees sent on money transfers using its mobile money service, which must have run into a few hundred million shillings todate.

It Is an intersting breakdown because who is to say that the waiving of money transfer fees or the call center they set up of for the health ministry has not had a wider benefit than the water stands or the cash handed over to the effort?
It raises an interesting question of, beyond the photo opportunities, how effectiveis corporate social responsibility for the intended recipients?

Is it better to give in kind or in actual hard cash and allow recipients make the decision what to use the aid on?
This last question is an interesting one, take for instance the governmmnet food hand out, there are ways of thinking about its effectiveness, I list two.

The argument can be made that giving people food directly ensures that they will eat. And because the government is buying in such huge volumes the unit cost is so low that the shilling can be stretched much further.

So if as was planned governmnet is going to buy a few million kilograms of maize flour, the bargaining power that comes with  this makes it obvious they will not buy retail, at worst they will be buying ex-factory and even then can push for a discount.

To take the same amount and dish out to the recipients who will buy their maize flour retail, means fewer people will be impacted or at least each beneficiary will not get as much as if the flour was centrally bought.

"The other argument can be made that if you gave the recipients the cash equivalents they may not buy food, but attend to other needs that are more pressing....

Thankfully harvests were not bad last season and are expected to come in on target this season, so food shortages may not be people's more urgent need but health care or water or even transport maybe more urgent and the money can be spent accordingly.

This last part feeds nicely into the debate of how to raise demand so that businesses can get back on their feet quickly after the lockdown has been liftfed.

To lift the economy out of the last global financial crisis in 2008, the US government spent hundreds of billions of dollars propping up  companies. Their argument was that if the companies collapsed millions would find themselves out of a job and the economy as whole would come crashing down.

Critics say this was the biggest example of capitalist croniyism in world history. Jobs were still lost as company owners cut back on costs to repay government and get out from undedr its wings. The benefits of the bailout were concentrated among a very few poeple.

The alternative they argued would have been to give individual cash handouts, which would allow the beneficiaries to go shopping and shore up the companies anyway, with the benefits spread much wider.
The second is more populist and probably bettere economics anyway.

You dont look a gift horse in the mouth, but if corporate donation or governmmnet handouts are to go beyond making managers look and feel good they are serious questions that need to be considered.

And while we are still at it who is to say that police officer Maneno Ayikoru who donated her March salary of sh200,000 to the effort, isnt the most giving of us all?

GETTING BACK IN POST THE CORONA CRISIS

Last year US billionaire investor Warren Buffet came under criticism for holding on to cash instead of investing it.

At the end of last year he was seating on a $120b stock pile of cash—fourtimes the size of the Uganda economy, many times over the target he has set for his company Berkshire Hathaway of mainitaining at least $20b in cash.

The criticism came from some of his shareholders who, pointing to the stock market which was in the middle of a bull run, said he was costing them by seating in the lower returning cash.

"The 89-year old stuck to his guns, arguing that he could not see any companies selling at a reasonable discount and not attractive enough as investments, therefore he was happy to seat tight...

Months later the Oracle of Omaha has been proven right yet again. With the equity markets in a tailspin and many businesses large and small in urgen need of bailout, he will be the go-to-man when the dust settles.
And this is not the first time.

Before the global financial crisis broke in 2008 he was $40b in cash and criticism of him was mounting. One magazine even dared to ask whether Buffett had lost his touch.

He bailed out investment bank Goldman Sachs, conglomerate, GE, Bank of America and several other companies with multi-billion dollar investments.
Buffett not only survived that criss but thrived.

Which was the key lesson in Nassim Taleb’s book, Antifragile. He started out by saying  antifragile was not the opposite of fragile – to break easily. The distinction he said was the opposite of fragile, robust, would mean surviving in times of difficuilty but antifragile means thriving in times of difficulty.

The one thing I picked out was that to become antifragile, one has to build redundancy in their lives or endeavours, which can be called upon in time of distress. To make hay while the sun shines...

So Buffett has his Himalayas of cash, making his company Antifragile. At least more than most.

Most of us are not in that happy position. We darent even go back to business, if we have any business to go back to after this corona virus.

Not only did we not build any redundancy, but also we shall find that market behaviour has changed drastically, since our doors were last open.

For instance we might find people reluctant to spend, even the little they have. We may very well find that our clients have changed preferences for how they want to be served – home delivery as opposed to coming to your shop.

So how do we survive when the lockdown is lifted and we have to get back to our businesses. Here are a few suggestions gleaned from all over the place.

1. Get your books in order

For the more corproate companies they probably do this all the time. The Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) need to pay better attention to this. To get a snap shot of the business will help every part of the recovery process, from cutting costs, to work rationalisation, to which customers to focus on, to conversations with the tax man and your bankers.

This last group, your bankers are going to be critical to your survival in coming days.

Your banker can allow you an overdraft to meet your day to day bills only if he has good sense of the money flowing in and out of your business. Apart from the activity on your account his confidence will be improved by seeing your cashflow statements.

Banks lend with ease to those who don’t need the money – show strong cashflows, rarely to those who do...

2. Not time for pride

Related to the above you will quickly realise pride has no place in the recovery process. You may have to invite new partners who will lend you money or better still, take an equity stake in your business. Your pledge to keep the business in the family regardless of circumstances may have to fly out the window.

But for investors to get a good sense of your business and for you to ge the best deal possible they need to be able to assess the quality of the business, besides your slick sales pitch.

"Poor record keeping may mean you dont get money at all or worse still, you get less than your business is actually worth...

The story is told of the  man in our town, who lost his company because he had billions owed to the tax man that were not reflected in his books. The potential buyer after due diligence pointed this out and lowered his offer substantially, in order to take the tax arrears off the founders’ hands. The founder’s  stubbornness not to sell at the much lower price cost him his business and the money the prospective owners offered him.

Pack your pride away and get on with the business of surviving. Survive first and make money later, said George Soros.

3. Cut fat, not muscle

My man Buffett says alarm bells go off when he hears a business owner or manager saying his strategy is to cut costs. Cutting costs is like breathing, you dont go around saying I am going to breath, you do it every day or you die, he said.

The robustness of one’s cost managment is tested during such times. The challenge is that if one hasn’t been disciplined in good times, when the bad times come, in the panic to cut costs more often than not, even the core of the business, the muscle, is affected....

You have to be clear what the core of the business is, and most likely that part of the business that will keep you alive the day after. Clarity on this front will cut through the politics and sentimentality, when it comes to hacking away at the fat.

4. Blow your ...uhm?  Whistle?

Why do people buy from you? Because you have a good product? Because you are good value for money? Because you are convenient?

All of the above maybe true for your business, but they will count for nothing if the market doesn’t know about you.

"Now more than ever communicating about your business to existing and potential clients is going to be critical...

Get in touch with your clients and inform them you are back in business, reach out to new clients to tell them about yourself.
This is doubly important now becausein the lock down we have become wed to convenience. Why should i come to you if you cant deliver to me, Is going to be a question many will have to answer in coming days.

It need not be the end of the world because your business is not Antifragile. But you will have to hit the ground runnig to survive.

HEALTH WILL BE THE “NEW” ASSET IN THE POST CORONA ERA

On an intellectual level we knew it all the time, the state of a nation’s health determines the productivity of the population.

The less incidents of illness, the less down time or absenteeism in the workforce. It follows therefore, looking at humans as units of production, more work will be done across a given time.

In a pre-corona era it was ok to tallk about dealing with illness after the fact. Treatment instead of prevention. In fact the global health system is geared towards treating rather than preventing illness.

That will have to change. The major line of defence against the corona virus, like almost any other virus, is a robust immune system. An emphasis on good nutrition, proper hygiene, sanitation and regular exercise are good preventative measures. And that even if the virus gets past ones best preventative measures the body will be able to fight back and, God willing, prevail.

On a global level how will this change the way government’s budget and companies view their balance sheets?

The Corona virus has exposed global health systems. The response time to the pandemic has been found wanting.

Health surveillance systems were caught flat footed and even when they woke up to the danger, they were slow to respond in  a coordinated and coherent manner.
And when the disease started tearing through the population our infrastructure – hard and soft, was found lacking.

There are video clips of Bill Gates that have gone viral, of him warning years ago that the next big challenege will be from microbes and we are not ready.

Around the world health systems response have swung from incompetence of poorly resourced public facilities to the mercenary indifference of private health care. Neither coud rise to the occassion when they were called upon and in future this will have to change.

On an individual level we have become addicted to processed, convenient foods that have pushed instances of obsessity to historically high levels, caused a pandemic of non-communicable diseases and generally made us all vulnerable to opportunistic infection.

It is clear that health has to become a bigger priority in national budgets, and not only about building health facilities but also investments in educating health workers, research and development and health cover for all have to be prioritised to fend off the next pandemic.

In companies, health will have to find a place on the balance sheets and health cover will assume greater importance. Exercise facilities will not be an expense item the bean counters scratch off the budget.

About 15 years ago I visted a bank’s headquarters and was shocked to find they had a world class health & fitness center, complete with gym, pool, indoor running track and squash cort. I asked how they justified the expense to the accountants and the human resource manager said they had enough evidence that members turned up to their desk earlier or stayed longer and could link that to higher productivity. They beat the traffic by coming in earlier or leaving later to use the gym, in the process pulling their own weight in the organisation. And that was before they showed that gym members were the least off on sick leave.
The losses to the world economy from the corona virus are going to run into trillions of dollars. That is the accounting description. In real terms it will mean lost jobs, diminished livelihoods and death.

You can place a nominal value on a person life if you count him as a unit or production of consumption. But that is not even half the picture of his economic output, not to mention his contribution to the economic out put  of the other people around him, if he keeps healthy.

How do you value the loss of a spouse who through holding up their part of running  the home allows the spouse to perform optimally at work? How do you value the contribution of  a well child to mummy’s output in the ofice? If a worker can still get work done despite illness how much more would they produce when in perfect health?
I think even on the most cosmetic of levels that accounting is, a case can be made that companies that pay attention to their staff’s health are more productive to those that don’t – even if you use the measure of profitability per staff member.

The bean counters may come around, but I think it is too soon to say.
Corona is not about to run its course, what with stories of reinfection emerging from China, it will be around for a while to come, at least until the end of next year if a vaccine is out in the next 12 months.
By that time i can guarantee you health, more than not being sick,  will occupy central position in  our consciosness.
It is not the first time in human history. The global improvements in hygeine and sanitation were a response to the  pandemics that  swept through Europe in the middle ages.

The rich thought they were insulated from the filth and squalor of the lower classes, before these  became epicenters of genocidal plagues and the rich realised they had to uplift everyone’s standards if they were to survive. And that is how public health budgets took on greater importance in western Europe.

Will corona do the same for us? Let us wait and see.

Wash your hands!