Client Update: Coronavirus COVID-19

The well-publicised spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) together with its recent designation by the World Health Organisation as a global pandemic, has created questions and concerns in the minds of our clients, partners, suppliers and staff. It appears extremely unlikely that this virus will be contained in the coming weeks and months, and during this time everyone at WIOCC will be doing all we can to limit its spread and to protect ourselves, families, friends, colleagues and others.

During this unprecedented situation, WIOCC is committed to continuing to provide services to its clients. From our founding 11 years ago, our network has always been engineered for resilience and our operational processes and other working practices have been designed to include contingencies for such events. However, in this specific case we are also implementing a number of additional steps, including:
• minimising international and local travel for all but the most critical journeys
• using conference calling where appropriate to minimise the need for physical meetings whilst not disrupting workflow
• supporting staff in working from home rather than being office-based wherever practicable, extending the use of our cloud-based support systems
• enhanced measures to increase sparing and equipment redundancy in the network, mitigating against route outages and restrictions in movement that have been – or may be – put in place
• liaising closely with all third-party network and equipment suppliers to identify, understand and mitigate against challenges they may face in supporting us during this period

Our Network Operations Centre is continuing to operate on a 24/7 basis and has been extended through the parallel running of our Disaster Recovery Centre and virtual NOC capability staffed by our internationally-based technical teams.

WIOCC is closely monitoring news and advice issued by Governments, and following the guidance of the World Health Organisation and local public health authorities in the cities and regions within which it operates. We will continue to implement measures and issue updates to ensure the safety of our clients, suppliers and our workforce and to help reduce the spread of Coronavirus COVID-19.