coronavirus covid-19 continues to spread. the fight against the virus is posing tremendous challenges for people and companies in china. after more than a month of joint efforts, we are now seeing many positive changes in turning the epidemic.
according to merck china president allan gabor: “at the moment, employees’ health and safety remain our top priority. under these circumstances, we are trying our best to maintain a safe working environment and have established a series of protection measures.”
at merck china, a crisis management team was formed at the very early stage and is coordinating all efforts globally. the leadership team of merck in china established a local emergency response team to tackle the exceptional situation. the cross-functional team consists of managing directors and leaders from each business sector, as well as representatives from all relevant group functions (finance, legal, ehs, human resources, communications, the china office, and the merck china innovation hub).
the team is keeping 4,000 employees in china closely updated through internal communication, the local corporate wechat account and emails, responding to the latest developments. it is constantly monitoring the current situation, providing guidelines on prevention measures, among them an employee assistance program with a hotline to answer all questions. the team also continues to equip employees with face masks and other safety gear.
allen lee (left), head of the performance materials site in jinqiao, and allan gabor, merck china president, check the delivery of face masks.
merck’s quick response was also reflected in its multiple donation efforts. at the early stage of the epidemic, merck donated and delivered 15,000 professional protective masks to front-line medical staff at several designated hospitals in wuhan through its global procurement network.
as the epidemic escalates, merck group ceo stefan oschmann announced on february 4 the donation of 3 million yuan (us$430,521) in cash and supplies to support the efforts of local medical staff through relevant charity organizations. through merck’s life science business sector, merck donated related research and diagnosis equipment worth about 600,000 yuan to local scientific research institutions in wuhan for virus detection and analysis.
face masks are delivered to wuhan by merck employees.
as a key supplier to national priority industries like health care, life science and electronics, merck china feels a high sense of responsibility to focus on business continuity. today, merck has made steady progress on resuming work. at work sites, most of our operational staff have resumed work.
"we are pleased that we have been able to meet our customer’s needs. from a supplier perspective, merck is actively in contact with all key suppliers in china to review open purchase orders and assess safety stock levels," gabor said. "today’s situation underscores the importance of scenario and business continuity planning with our key suppliers. our global distribution team is actively monitoring open channels in and out of china, and has been successfully moving products where possible."
merck remains confident about china and its economy.
“merck is standing firmly with china. we all have strong confidence that with strong government leadership and all the responsible enterprises and efforts from our communities, we will prevail again!” gabor said.
