Dear Customers,
From today Latvia has stopped the emergency situation due to COVID-19 and this will be our last update letter to you.
Still some facts :
- The COVID-19 tests done in the country – 63 185 per million inhabitants (120 052 in total)
- COVID-19 positive - 573 per million inhabitants (1089 in total)
- We have 26 reported death cases
- From May 24 till June 8 the number of infected people varied from 0 to 3 a day, with 8 cases only once.
Today we would like to look back and try to understand what we have learned from this year’s unusual experience.
As human individuals we realized the true uncertainty of our existance being unable to control a new virus.
- Being social creatures firstly we learned how deeply we missed our friends and family members.
- We understood, how important it was to be free to choose a cultural event – either cinema, concert, exhibition or a theatre performance.
- We learned to spend more of our free time travelling around Latvia with our families.
- We learned to shop on-line and to order food from a restaurant.
- Not only our children got used to learning on-line, but also all of us have done more video meetings and telephone conferences than ever before.
- Walking and cycling have become our most popular physical activities.
- We have learned to stay in Latvia – no flights abroad for 3 months already and no visitors in the office! But we all noticed the first plane flying over Riga!
At the company level we have understood that:
- strong company culture in such situations is crucial and we have to praise our employees for being responsible and supportive.
- money you invest in training of your staff pays back even more in case of emergency – without our experienced and skilled technicians and operators we would not have been able to keep all the machines running as there was no technical support available from abroad.
- those who worked from home appreciated our workflow digitization improvements, which allowed them to have new experiences sharing their working time with the smallest family members.
- it is always good to have material stock in your warehouse, but even more so when suddenly borders start closing and you have a feeling of total lockdown. In this situation fast reaction from our purchasing department saved us the headache about e.g. IPA.
- It is good to have reliable supply chain partners, who understand they depend on you as much as you depend on them. We have to thank all our material suppliers who did the utmost to ensure we can produce your books without interruptions.
- We appreciate all our customers, who trusted us and placed orders with us.
- We have learned also that it is extremely important to have open communication and information exchange with all of you – that helped us to find the best solutions choosing alternative materials, accepting small delays with deliveries and giving you order inflow forecasts, when possible.
Would you share your experience working with us in this very hard time for all?! Is there anything we could have done better?
Now there are two weeks left till our production team starts enjoying the summer vacation. We would like to ask you a favour – as you have your plans for autumn season despite the uncertainty about bookfairs in Gothenburg and Frankfurt, Copenhagen and Helsinki, could you provide us with at least preliminary orders for July- September as early as possible. That would help us to improve the production planning as well as consolidate the material stock depending on your needs.
Wishing you all safe and sunny summer and hoping to meet you in person earlier than next year!
Livonia Print Team
