As the world weathers the COVID-19 virus pandemic, we are faced with posturing for such and protecting / helping ourselves, family, friends, co-workers and members of our greater communities; but a procrastination of sorts -- coupled with a distrust / disbelief that this will impact me (downplaying the magnitude of such) and not knowing what we don’t know, exponentially raises the risk of infection and serious health consequences coming to bear.

Many companies have been asking whether their business is essential and, if they are essential, do they have to require employees to come to work. The Illinois Executive Order issued this past Friday caused much concern and confusion.

Part 1 of "The New Supply Chain" blog series Mike Loquercio, Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management Expert

For those of us in the supply chain field, we may or may not have sophisticated systems that provide big data relative to sales, markets, items, transit times, on-time delivery, shipped in full, and all the other metrics that help assess the health of the supply chain.

Depending upon your products, customers, and your manufacturing footprint, the most recent crisis may have taxed your supply chain to its limits or maybe you have a business continuity plan (BCP) that encompasses all the challenges.

"The times they are a changin’”-Bob Dylan 1964

No doubt all our work schedules and routines have been altered in the last few weeks. If we still report to a station in our workplace, procedures and social distances have changed. This impacts our communication style and frequency. If we are now remote, more drastic changes have occurred. Conversations with colleagues and customers may have most likely decreased from our normal rate and volume. Communication styles and tools have also changed, particularly for the remote worker.

How to market to new customers when orders are slow:

This is an original NIST Cybersecurity Insights blog post, written by Jeff Greene.

Your employer has unexpectedly directed you to telework—and you are feeling overwhelmed. With many changes happening at once, telework security could be an afterthought or completely overlooked. This could put you and your organization at increased risk from attackers, who are always looking for opportunities to take advantage of disruption generally and weak security practices specifically. But it’s more than your organization at risk—if your telework device is compromised, anything else connected to your home network could be at risk too.

An original article by Nico Thomas, Performance Analyst for the Program Evaluation and Economic Research  group of NIST MEP.

Technology is the single greatest challenge (and opportunity) for the manufacturing industry … or is it? It’s true that technology has evolved and changed how manufacturers—especially small and medium-sized manufacturers—operate their businesses, in ways that even a few years ago didn’t seem possible.

This is an original article from NIST Manufacturing Innovation Blog.

Cybersecurity threats are a huge business risk for all companies. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) — including manufacturers — are especially vulnerable to attacks. Small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) are often seen as an easy entry point — a “soft” target — into larger businesses and government agencies. One of the first steps when prioritizing how to manage your business risk is to gather information about the threat environment. The 20 important (and shocking) cybersecurity statistics listed below focus on what manufacturers need to know about the “what” and “so what” of cybersecurity, so they can start planning their “now what” actions.

The Coronavirus continues to make its way across the globe.  As many of us are trying to keep an eye on the impact,  it is a good time to think through potential risks for you and your organization. We owe it to our customers, employees, and communities to ensure health and safety in our business practices.

Who is StratMarketing Group?

StratMarketing Group (StratMg) is a demand generation company that places high value on building authentic relationships with customers and partners.

Prior to starting StratMg, Parin Mody contributed to deploying one of the first implementations of Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in the United States. From there, he transitioned into product marketing within manufacturing that eventually led to marketing and sales experience specifically within the manufacturing industry in the United States - hence, StratMg was formed.