Keeping innovation happening in challenging times

As the world struggles to deal with the COVID crisis, we are all contemplating the impact on our personal and professional lives. Like most of the business world, iMOVE has gone virtual to protect the well-being of its staff and the people with whom we do business.

Although full time remote working is an adaptation, this has not disrupted our ability to serve our partners and stakeholders. We continue to focus on the effective execution of our partners’ projects, including the ones that are affected by the COVID crisis. We are taking a proactive and flexible approach that includes reviewing projects for any likely delays and being aware of partners’ situations and needs. I am pleased to say that overall things are continuing well given the unusual circumstances.

Here are a few of my observations about this current situation.

Priorities change in a crisis

We understand this and want to help all our affected partners. Let us know about any issues you are experiencing that impact our projects. Let us know if the crisis creates new opportunities for you that needs a rapid response

Innovation is a medium-to-long term endeavour

Many of the issues and opportunities we are working on will still be there after the crisis abates and it takes time to develop new technology. To get the future benefit we need to stay the course and use the changed circumstances to strengthen our focus on the target.

While we may suffer some delays and disruption, we will weather these and remain committed to delivering our projects as promised.

The ongoing importance of learning from each other

COVID-19 was a simultaneous surprise for the whole world so there is no possibility to copy a solution that someone else has already found. Because everyone faces the same problem, we believe it is useful to quickly share the good ideas that are emerging for adaptation of local transport systems to the current crisis. To this end we have created a (globally accessible) LinkedIn community for sharing ideas and initiatives. Click here to request joining the group.

Change presents opportunities to develop new initiatives. We are currently seeing unprecedented change in travel and work patterns over a short period of time. There is less congestion on the roads and a complete shift in public transport use. Meanwhile the whole world has had a crash course in remote working. What can we do with this new experience to create longer term benefit to our communities?

If you are interested in exploring ideas, drop me an email.