As the Coronavirus outbreak reaches Indian shores with at least 29 confirmed cases in the country, its effects have begun to be felt in many quarters. Companies and industries around the world are now contemplating their next move to contain the virus, safeguard employees and sustain the business.
- An Intel employee in Bangalore has potentially been exposed and is currently under quarantine in accordance with government requirements,” Intel said in a late-night statement, on 4th March
- Paytm confirms one employee test positive in Gurgaon.
Tech giants like Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, and Wipro, etc have asked staff to avoid non-essential travel as they put measures to safeguard their employees against the deadly virus.
Tech Mahindra has restricted all new domestic & international travel with immediate effect and these restrictions will be applicable till 30th April 2020 unless there is a change in circumstances. The Company has also issued an advisory, not to schedule any ‘In-person’ meetings with customers and external partners/vendors. All meetings need to be on TP, VC, etc.
Intel has also said it has implemented precautionary measures like travel restrictions, increased frequency of office sanitization, and work-from-home provisions in India.
Twitter has also asked all its 5,000 employees to work from home. In a company statement, Twitter said, “We are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they’re able. Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us -and the world around us.”
According to Livemint, Xiaomi has called off all phone launch events in March. “We are making this decision with the objective of reducing exposure risk to coronavirus (Covid-19) for our Mi fans, media friends, partners, and Xiaomi employees,” the company said in a letter. Now Xiaomi was expected to launch its Redmi Note 9 series in India on 12 March.
Oppo’s subsidiary, Realme, has also called off its 5 March event in New Delhi to launch the Realme 6 smartphone.
Microsoft has updated its guidelines for employees, allowing anyone based in Seattle or San Francisco to work from home till March 25th, 2020. The company is also recommending that those who are feeling sick, have a compromised immune system, or have had contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19 (the disease caused by the novel coronavirus) should work from home.
Cognizant is restricting all non-essential travel including an upcoming ‘Cognizant Community’ event scheduled in Texas, in light of risks related to the spread of COVID- 19 (Coronavirus), according to an email sent to employees by Brian Humphries, CEO of the IT services company on Wednesday.
Facebook said it will ban all social visits to its offices worldwide, including India, and job interviews will be held via video conferencing. Amazon too is holding job interviews via videoconferencing.
R Srikrishna, CEO of mid-tier technology provider, Hexaware Technologies said, “We expect a significant amount of travel restrictions from customers around the world that will reduce customer executives visiting India, or to any of our centers around the world. The impact has already started and is likely to last several weeks.”
SaaS application provider Zoho has also taken measures such as cancelling user conferences, said Rajendran Dandapani, Director of Technology at the company. “We have cancelled our user conferences in a few at-risk countries, banned all non-critical travel for our employees and readied our disaster-response teams for quick action.”
Globally, there have been over 92,800 cases of the novel coronavirus. At least 3,100 people have died so far — the majority of them in China. Infections have steadily risen in Iran, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. The outbreak is having a major impact on the global economy and the stock market.
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