Security News
Coronavirus Crisis: The IT Industry Prepares For The Worst
Joseph F. Kovar
While the spread of COVID-19, a.k.a. the coronavirus disease 2019, appears to be slowing, the IT industry is hoping to mitigate risks to their employees and their businesses, with many canceling conference participation or warning of financial risks.
Channel Keeping An Eye Open
When Insight Enterprises last week reported its fiscal fourth quarter 2019 financials, Ken Lamneck (pictured), president and CEO of the Tempe, Ariz.-based global integrator, responded to an analyst's question about the potential impact on its business from the coronavirus by saying the company is keeping an eye on possible impacts not only on its China and Hong Kong operations but also on its worldwide supply chain.
When asked by another analyst about any impact Insight Enterprises saw during the fiscal quarter from the ongoing coronavirus situation, Lamneck said that his company has three locations in China and one in Hong Kong where employees are currently working from home.
"[Government orders to work from home were] extended another week, as you know, so [it's] certainly impacting business in the region," he said. "No question about that. For us, of course, it's a small portion of our business, so we're not going to see any material effect there."
Insight Enterprises is also closely monitoring supply chains for impact from the coronavirus, Lamneck said.
"I think [the virus impact] overlapped a little bit with the Chinese New Year, so many of the OEMs of course account for that already," he said. "So this is sort of now an extension of maybe ... Chinese New Year, which everybody accounts for, looking more like a three-week Chinese New Year situation. So if that goes beyond that, I think it definitely starts to impact the supply chain. But at this stage, we're monitoring closely but haven't seen any impact or sort of hoarding of product or anything. But again, it's a pretty dynamic situation. If that continues beyond that, then I think we might see some impact there. But today I’d say nothing at this stage."
