I hope you are all healthy and well as we approach the end of the year despite the uncertainties of the Omicron variant.
I wanted to write to you with a short message about our last 12 months. Like most people, we have had a fair share of highs and lows, and it has been two distinct phases.
The first was from the depths of the second wave in January to the summer months of July and August - this was consolidation. We had come through a challenging period where travel was down from 2019 but had stabilised to a steady-state. We were focused on supporting those still out in the field, but not necessarily travelling. In other words, money and resources were tight; our essential services were required to safeguard against risk multipliers from CV19, such as civil unrest, movement restrictions and supply chain shortages.
In some of our countries, we saw a marked increase in crime and instability due to the deteriorating economic situation created by the pandemic. People needed to be kept up to date and supported locally, something we could do using our two terrific in-country teams, our Regional Security Advisors spanning sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and Spearfish West Africa, focusing purely on Nigeria and surrounding countries. We also completed several training programmes in Nigeria using a purely locally-led solution.
The good news is that we didn’t lose anyone during this phase, to CV19, redundancy or furlough, and we all remained busy. We were active, a position many other businesses were not so fortunate to be in.
As we were adapting to the situation and wondering what life would be like going into the autumn, we hit the second phase at the beginning of September. This was a rapid restart to client operations, some of whom we hadn’t heard from for over a year. At first, this consisted of general discussions around potential travel, but this quickly converted to consulting on various projects, mainly dealing with renewable energy and public health in Africa. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan also threw more impetus onto our Pakistan operations as the country quickly became the centre for regional efforts in Asia.
Looking Ahead to 2022
As we go into the new year, we have some new and exciting projects going live (including vaccine programme risk assessments and more renewable energy projects). We continue our support to existing clients as they scale up operations.
I know that 2022 will be busy but not as we knew it pre-CV19. By adapting to clients new working patterns and staying relevant in their efforts to keep their staff confident and safe, we will remain active into next year.
From myself and all the team at Spearfish, may I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Dan Hooton,
Managing Director