One year after - Finally there seems to appear (@ least some) light in the tunnel !

Hi all You globally distributed readers of my posts and followers of my blog. 

Let me at first say congrats to all of us! Today is the 1st anniversary of my blog since I published the first of my meanwhile in total 84 (including this one) posts on thursday morning, June 18, 2020. 

The initial idea behind my decision to become a blogger had been, to enhance the open exchange of personal & professional experiences with You and to increase my worldwide network of personal & professional contacts. What states clearly after exactly one year now is, that both objectives have been more than fully accomplished.

I must admit, that it still impresses me a lot, how many people at totally distant places all around the globe show ongoing interest in my posts, comment on these and enter into direct contact with me. That`s really amazing and it makes me feel enormously honored and proud. Thank`s for all that support and fidelity.

As I had already mentioned in my first post exactly one year ago, I fully considered and treated this project as a trial & error adventure. To be true, I did not prepare myself before stepping into it and I also did not really interest myself for the purely technical part. Once I had taken my decision to try out blogging, I just went into it. And exactly by doing so - last not least through many highly appreciated comments and very helpful hints from lots of You readers and followers of my blog - I started to learn and to - hopefully! - improve. 

During the first months I still wrote daily posts. Later-on I switched over to weekly publications only. And since the end of last year I have been taking the full freedom and pleasure, to just publish new posts, whenever I feel the wish to do so. This has proven very successful and satisfying for me and it has reduced enormously the pressure on me and given me a lot of relaxation and satisfaction.

One year ago we had no clue yet, how this damned Covid-19 threat would develop and impact our live and business. Here in Brazil we - truly spoken - just had started then to become aware of the real and true dimension of this threat for all of us and for the whole world. And our federal government did not contribute to the creation and increase of our awareness.

Like most other international companies and many national ones doing business in Brazil, we had immediately protected our factory in Itatiba, Sao Paulo, with lots of quite stringent measures since mid March 2020, when the first information about Covid-19 and it`s danger for all of us had arrived here.

 And this has worked somehow fantastically until today, so that we could keep all our processes and services for our national and international customers unharmed going on without any disturbancies or even interruption. 

Together with 69 other Vulkan do Brasil colleagues I have been switching over to working almost fully @ home instead of in my factory office mid March 2020 and after almost 16 months of experience with this we can truly state, that it works wonderfully and that it even has increased our productivity and performance. 

From out of this very positive experience we have already decided, that even if there came an "end" to the Covid-19 threat one day in the future, we would definitely continue with a "hybrid" (mixture of home office & presential = factory office) work routine. And we have already re-arranged and prepared most of the office areas @ our factory for this future "new normal" work routine & culture. 

In general I can say, that our company Vulkan do Brasil has perfectly overcome all challenges directly and indirectly related to Covid-19 so far until today. 

It has paid strongly out, that we had switched great part of our raw material and component supplies from imported to national sources during the last couple of years. And it has shown a huge strategic advantage for us, that we have practically kept all key capabilities, processes, experiences and resources in-house under our full own control at Vulkan do Brasil in Itatiba.

 All this and several other factors have enabled us, to continue our strong growth in the national and exportation markets with the products and services for all 3 Vulkan Group divisions - Vulkan Couplings (marine applications), Vulkan Drive Tech (industrial applications) and Vulkan Lokring (refrigeration applications). 

We can really say, that our company has somehow very sucessfully developped during the last 6 years from a canoe to a pleasure boat and finally has become a real battleship, which is prepared for all kinds of weather challenges out on the deep sea. We`re storm prove now! Ready for storm force 12 !

For me personally the by far biggest impact of Covid-19 was, that I had to refrain completely from national and international travelling, which before Covid-19 had been one of my main activities over years. Initially I had no clue, how I would be able to continue my business development and sales support activities purely from out of my home office in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo, Brazil, without catching any highway or airplane. But this was another important and impressive learning for me. 

As the stringent travelling and meeting restrictions imposed by Covid-19 have been affecting everybody and all companies around the globe in the same way, new methods for communication and for doing business had to be discovered and are beeing practised quite successfully since then. And - with certain limitations - this works quite nicely. 

I would even say, that many of the business travels, events and presential meetings, which we did in the past - seen from out of today`s experience - were not really necessary for achieving our objectives and could have been realised much more comfortably and efficiently by utilisation of modern online communication and conference tools, which we altogether use widely and easily since Covid-19 oblidged and taught us.

Since a couple of weeks quite good news appear. Several countries in different world regions are already firmly advancing with the vaccination process and are consequentially starting to alleviate restrictions for the population, which directly also easens business activities there again.

 Even here in Brazil vaccination continues at a rather fast pace meanwhile and at least in the state of Sao Paulo - but also in other federal states - the majority of the adult population is scheduled to become vaccinated until the end of this year. 

Let`s altogether cross our fingers for the progress of the light in the tunnel and prepare ourselfes and our businesses for the "time after Covid-19", how ever that will be. 

I personally strongly believe, that improvement will come and that we will altogether become able to intensify once again our personal & professional interactions and activities on local, regional and global scale.

Nobody to describe better this positive feeling and conviction than the late John Lennon in his wonderful song "Imagine":

https://youtu.be/YkgkThdzX-8

I am terribly curious now to receive Your feedback and comments. And congrats to all of us once more - we have just started the 2nd year of my blog! Thanks for accompanying it !