During this unusual COVID-19 crisis, Esko assists its valued customers in minimizing disruption of their operations, and in the packaging supply chain.

These days we are facing unprecedented circumstances, causing uncertainty amongst individuals and business around the world. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, stating in its message the certainty that the coronavirus (COVID-19) will inevitably spread to all parts of the world.

Here at Esko, we are implementing recommendations and guidelines of local authorities to minimize risk of spread. We see our customers respond in the same way, with the same primary concern in mind as we have ourselves: the safety of customers, partners and employees, and business continuity.

With countermeasures getting more stringent by the day, many business owners reflect on the question if one can ever be prepared for a pandemic like the coronavirus outbreak we are experiencing now. The unpredictability of the outbreak and the massive impact this has on our lives – on personal, societal and professional level – makes this question a particularly challenging one to answer.

We have committed to a cautious approach in running our business and based on recommendations of the governments and experts, we responded with workforce protection, supply chain stabilization and customer engagement.

Workforce protection

• We have installed corporate and local response teams that are continuously monitoring the situation. These teams are empowered to swiftly act in the best interest of employee safety and business continuity.
• To enforce social distancing, we have cancelled all non-essential business travel until further notice for all our employees, wherever they reside.
• As a global business, we are used to work with team members at remote locations or home offices. This expertise was invaluable for a fast and adequate response to lock down situations. In those countries in lock down, me and my colleagues continue to work from home.

Supply chain stabilization

• To minimize potential disruption of our hardware supply, we have enforced strict hygiene guidelines and extended cleaning services in our hardware factories in Germany and Czech Republic.
• To further limit infection risk for our production staff as much as possible, we have installed staggered production shifts. Access to production facilities and assembly lines is restricted for external visitors.
• Our network of consumable and spare part locations in Europe, US, Latin America and China enables us to ensure continuous supply. The situation of our supply chain and our logistic channels are monitored constantly and re-evaluated daily, but we cannot exclude minor delays when cross-border regulations enforce us to ship parts and consumables from other regions.

Customer engagement

• For those countries under restricted travel policy, we are equipped to support customers remotely and we are rolling out augmented reality tools for an immersive remote support experience.
• By now, all our software and hardware engineers are equipped with a laptop and access to the Esko intranet through a secure connection (VPN). We encourage remote product demonstrations, remote training and remote deployment in those countries under restricted travel policy.
• Customers covered by a Software Care Plan can benefit from additional temporary licenses for desktop applications to enable their associates to work from home. These temporary licenses will be renewed on a monthly basis for as long the business is affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

We live in very difficult times for everybody involved, but we are motivated and engaged to navigate these rough business conditions together with our customers. Though we could never have prepared ourselves in advance for this unusual situation, we are confident that we have all it takes in place to assist our valued customers in minimizing disruption of their operations, and ultimately in the supply chain of packaging.

For further information on our COVID-19 contingency plans, feel free to contact your local sales or service leader.

We wish you continued good health and thank you for your continued business and partnership.

Mattias Byström

President, Esko