As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues apace and the predicted peak in Wisconsin of the viral storm remains a month — or more — into the future, it’s no longer a matter of will Madison-area businesses adjust to this new reality but how they’re adjusting.
That includes local businesses that are helping their peers out during this challenging time.
As more organizations find their way amid the COVID-19 upheaval, In Business is endeavoring to share some of their stories as a reminder that we’re all in this together.
The Wisconsin Technology Council, the Madison-based science and technology advisor to the governor and the Legislature, has altered its monthly newsletter to a daily version, chronicling the latest in the local impact, news, and resources, according to Laura Kaiser, conference and social media director.
Aaron Hager, president of Harbour Investments Inc., says the Madison-based investment firm has operated at 100 percent while shifting more and more employees to work from home over the past month. “We have been using Webex for larger meetings and starting to use Microsoft Teams for smaller meetings and project collaboration. Communication has been the key to our success. We were also lucky as we have a great tech partner in Applied Tech. They have been working with us over the last few years, not only helping us migrate our local applications and databases to the cloud but also helping us better utilize laptops with docking stations to make the transition to home office much easier.”
Lift Consulting LLC, a Sandler Training Company, has all of its employees working from home at 100 percent functionality, too, says Laura Mael, director of business development. “We have migrated all our clients to online platforms for training, using Zoom for coaching and consulting calls and building and sharing strategy documents through Google Docs. We are optimizing Microsoft Teams to keep us motivated and accountable as a team and sharing that information with our clients and friends.
“To keep the information flowing, we’re holding free webinars on topics such as ‘Strategies for Pivoting Your Business During Crisis’ and ‘Managing a Remote Workforce,’” continues Mael. “We’re also offering to all up to one hour of crisis strategy consulting on us! We run weekly team check ins, call/text each other just to say ‘hello,’ and our CEO Matthew Pletzer checks in with each of us 1:1 by video in some shape or form a few times a week.”
AkitaBox, a facility management software provider based in Madison, is offering complementary services to health care institutions located within the Midwest, which are specifically designed to help in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s initiative is intended to empower health care organizations to better manage the facilities-related challenges they face amid the large-scale spread of COVID-19. AkitaBox is providing these services on a first-come, first-served basis until the company exhausts its available resources or the emergency passes.
AkitaBox’s mission in offering this response is to leverage its facility and infrastructure management platform to enable health care providers to identify miscellaneous units within their facilities that could be converted to COVID-19 units, according to a company press release. The AkitaBox response is meant to allow health care institutions to be able to identify the maximum number of beds that could be made available. In addition, the platform’s core capability will allow these same institutions to track critical pieces of equipment.
“These are unprecedented times, and no one has ever been through something like we are seeing with COVID-19,” says AkitaBox CEO Matt Miszewski. “But having been involved in both continuity planning and disaster response, the one thing I know with certainty is that we need to focus on being of service to our employees, our customers, and our communities at large. This solution is our attempt to do our part to help.”
BDO, a global accounting firm with a Madison office, has been in position to respond to the COVID-19 crisis earlier than other organizations, and it’s been pumping out valuable information and resources for weeks. Included on BDO’s COVID-19 resource page are links to a number of webinars on the various business impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as detailed analyses and insights on how the pandemic response is altering business practices across industries and the world.
Lake Effect Human Resources & Law in Madison has also been providing a local take on state and federal policies that have been rapidly rolled out since the coronavirus took hold across the U.S. in early March with updates on its website and newsletter.
Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. has also assembled a cross-disciplinary team of attorneys that has been working hard to provide clients with crucial information and help them understand the challenges they face during this time of uncertainty, notes Heather Asiyanbi, marketing and PR specialist.
“So much is changing so quickly with everything affected by the coronavirus, and one of our priorities is to make sure we are communicating to our clients, contacts, and friends of the firm (and beyond) how they can best navigate the unique legal challenges and business implications raised by COVID-19,” explains Asiyanbi.
To that end, over the past few weeks Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren has published more than 30 articles and videos, and hosted a webinar focusing on COVID-19 that had more than 500 attendees.
Local digital music startup LUÌM has launched an artist support campaign called LUÌM Cares to help struggling artists during the coronavirus pandemic. LUÌM will be forgoing profits to fund the LUÌM Cares initiative during the crisis.
Thousands of musicians in the United States have felt the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, notes a LUÌM press release. Every day artists have lost jobs, gigs, and incremental income they rely on to support themselves. The LUÌM Cares initiative will allow artists to receive direct financial support from their fans and increase the financial impact that each fan can make.
LUÌM’s direct-to-artist virtual gifting system, which launched in January 2020, gives fans the ability to provide direct financial support to the artists they discover and connect with on LUÌM. LUÌM is also giving each user, fans, and artists their first 200 Notes — each Note is equivalent to the financial value of a stream — for free.
BKD CPAs & Advisors, which has an office in Madison, launched the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Tax & Accounting Resource Center, with resources searchable by industry, service, topic, and type of content, to help disseminate important information.
To help individuals and businesses manage the changing tax expectations and financial landscape, BKD provides daily updates on industry changes, answers questions about the economy, and writes articles simplifying tax changes and highlighting the tools available to help heavily affected industries, including higher education institutions, construction companies, and health care providers. The new resource center also includes a COVID-19 webinar series that will air every Thursday at 2 p.m. CST.
Aldevron, a biotechnology company with an office in Madison, has been working between its other facilities in Fargo, North Dakota and Freiburg, Germany to produce plasmid DNA, proteins, mRNA, and antibodies in collaboration with multiple clients around the world to develop new vaccines, therapeutic medicines, or diagnostic tests for COVID-19.
“In a time, when unfortunately, there are many people with financial uncertainty, we couldn’t busier,” says Tom Foti president of Aldevron’s Protein Business Unit. “Thankfully, we have built a culture and developed leaders that can handle these uncommon times and for that, I’m especially proud.”
Foti notes Aldevron has been around since 1998 and in Madison since 2009. “We are a relatively quiet company in the communities that we work; however, we can pack a serious scientific punch relative to cell therapy, gene therapy, gene editing, and now the COVID-19 response. We are in a ‘war-time’ mode and Aldevron’s manufacturing capability is going to be essential for the new vaccines and therapies that are currently being fast-tracked through the FDA.”
There are many more local companies sharing solutions for handling the COVID-19 outbreak with their business peers that local companies could benefit from. If your organization has a unique resource available, please email jason@ibmadison.com.
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