Hurry Up And Wait

Much of our team’s effort over the last five days will never see the light of day. The actions we are taking will fade without any immediate quantitative results—and I’m OK with that. We are working diligently on planning for unexpected scenarios and preparing for events that may never come to pass.

We’re experiencing unprecedented times, and right now ensuring business continuity is equally important to driving long-term strategy—I’d argue it’s more important than ever given the circumstances.

Our recent initiatives remind me of my time in the U.S. Navy. The term “hurry up and wait” is an oft-repeated phrase due to constant priority changes in the military’s tasking—it’s like, for example, receiving a “full speed ahead” order immediately followed by an “all stop.” 

But there’s a reason for this. When a moment of need arrives, we’re prepared for just about anything. I started my enlisted career as a Naval Aircrewman, holding the position of Crew Chief for “familiarization flights” off the coast of Norfolk, and leading Airborne Mine Countermeasure (AMCM) missions which required dragging heavy equipment through the water from the rear of MH-53E helicopters. Every day we were either learning, training in simulators, or flying. And since 2002, how many real world channels or littoral waters has the Navy swept for live mines? Zero.

But we were prepared. And that’s the point. Because mitigating the risk of life and/or the degradation of military sea assets far outweighed the investment made each year in preparation to search, identify, and neutralize the threat of live mines.

This holds true right now in the civilian world with our preparatory actions at Hunt A Killer. The risks we identified would be catastrophic to the organization, and we must be prepared with several courses of action for each scenario. In all our planning and preparation, we remember that the health and safety of our team and community are our top priorities. That’s the foundation from which all of our decisions are made. 

Our largest business risk is supply-chain disruption, from our vendors and partners to shipping carriers—everything from a possible internal COVID-19 outbreak in our distribution facility to being mandated to cease operations. 

Here are some steps we took to mitigate these scenarios:

Ensure continuous distribution. We don’t know what the ultimate impacts of the virus will be, nor the tough-but-necessary mandates that may come from government agencies. In the event we receive an order to cease distribution, we built a portfolio of contingencies ranging from consolidating distribution with local partners to mobilizing our 20,000 square foot warehouse to one of ShipMonk’s fulfillment centers three hours north.

We quickly built financial models using shared tools to analyze and negotiate contractual terms, accelerated legal review and negotiations, sourced multiple semi-trailers and put a 53-foot dry-van on our warehouse docks to pre-load products. We worked to understand technology needs in order to integrate fulfillment software systems and immediately began development Monday. Next, we prepared operations personnel to mobilize with the warehouse items and oversee fulfillment operations with our new partners. When we moved to third-party logistics in 2018 to streamline core business functions, it took about four months of planning—we accomplished this in four days.

While it’s yet to be seen whether or not we’ll need to mobilize, I’m incredibly grateful for our team’s hard work and the leadership at ShipMonk for ensuring we had a backup plan.

Supplier contingencies. After speaking with prospective distribution partners in the Maryland area, we realized that not everyone was taking their planning as seriously as us. These conversations sparked additional discussions with upstream suppliers to get an understanding of how they were planning for the unknowns. Fortunately, our largest supplier has major contracts with local hospitals and knew that no matter what, they would be allowed, if not required, to remain open. For other suppliers, we quickly found backups in other states to mitigate risks.

Preventing transmission via CDC and World Health Organization guidance. While our distribution facility remains open per Maryland Governor Hogan’s directive, we aggressively implemented safety protocols to limit contact within the warehouse. This includes mandatory social distancing during the product handling phases, compartmentalizing warehouse zones, and separating distribution processes in the event of a COVID-19 case. 

The facility is professionally cleaned twice per day with overnight sterilization fogging every 72 hours, fulfillment team health surveys are conducted each morning with a temperature check, and hand washing is mandatory upon entering and exiting workstations. In addition, we granted 80 additional hours of PTO, and presented the option for continued work or staying at home.

Again, in every scenario, we are driven by the need to protect the health and safety of our team and our community.

This isn’t the exhaustive list, but it’s a glimpse into our mindset. We have at least two contingencies for every possibility that could severely impact business continuity. For distribution, we have four contingencies. We’ve invested weeks of combined brainpower already, and we’ve certainly delayed other in-work projects. Our financial investment for things we may never use is $20,000 and growing. But in the event of a catastrophic breakdown, we’re confident that we can continue to serve our Members who rely on us for bringing them closer together to those around them through immersive in-home entertainment.