Dear readers of ImProfil,
it’s December 2021 and Covid-19 is still determing our day-to-day-life. It’s still hard to visit family members in care homes, many people have lost relatives or loved ones to the virus and a normal life isn’t possible, which affects all of us. While we thought a year ago that everything would be over in a few weeks or months, we now have to slowly come to terms with the fact that we will probably have to deal with the pandemic and its consequences for a very long time to come.
In the summer, there was a small ray of hope with very low infection rates, promising vaccines and a relatively high vaccination rate. During this time, we could all catch a breath and have a few weeks of what almost felt like normal life again, concerts and football games started again, bars and clubs opened back up, and life felt a little lighter. But in the fall, the good mood toppled and new Covid-19 variants and extremely high infection rates and vaccination breakthroughs again led to many restrictions in the private and business sectors. Now we are on the verge of a complete lockdown again and have to worry about being allowed to spend Christmas with our family - where Advent and Christmas are usually the most special time of the year to spend with your family, baking cookies, shopping presents and having lots of great food together. it’s December 2021 and Covid-19 is still determing our day-to-day-life.
It’s still hard to visit family members in care homes, many people have lost relatives or loved ones to the virus and a normal life isn’t possible, which affects all of us. While we thought a year ago that everything would be over in a few weeks or months, we now have to slowly come to terms with the fact that we will probably have to deal with the pandemic and its consequences for a very long time to come. In the summer, there was a small ray of hope with very low infection rates, promising vaccines and a relatively high vaccination rate. During this time, we could all catch a breath and have a few weeks of what almost felt like normal life again, concerts and football games started again, bars and clubs opened back up, and life felt a little lighter. But in the fall, the good mood toppled and new Covid-19 variants and extremely high infection rates and vaccination breakthroughs again led to many restrictions in the private and business sectors. Now we are on the verge of a complete lockdown again and have to worry about being allowed to spend Christmas with our family - where Advent and Christmas are usually the most special time of the year to spend with your family, baking cookies, shopping presents and having lots of great food together.
During the summer months, our salespeople were able to make at least a few business trips to visit customers. However, many countries are still in lockdown or do not allow visitors into the country, making it impossible for us to present and sell our machines there. So this year has been another difficult year for companies and the economy as a whole. But we, as a mid-sized company, are making the best of it and trying to continue to keep the business going. Our salespeople continue to make sales calls via online meetings like Zoom, our machines are still set up virtually via cameras and VR goggles, and training and maintenance are held online. We manage quite well that way, even though we all very much want normality back.The personal contact with our customers, having a beer after the work is done, travelling to some of the most beautiful places on earth to sell our machines - all that is definitely missing. We try to preserve a bit of normality with our Krah-TV videos, which we regularly post on YouTube. There we present different Krah customers and partners and the production of pipes in different countries, present accessories from our Krah online store or show our Krah pipes in use on construction sites. Also check out our online store every now and then, there are always some good offers for our accessories, spare parts and marketing material. Even though this year was again a very “special” year and it would be a lie to speak of a good year, we all leave the year with a positive feeling and a happy heart and look forward full of hope to the new, hopefully better year. After all, in the end, everyone is responsible for their own feelings and personal success. Maybe we should think about what we have and how well we are doing - instead of only looking at the negative things. Then we will quickly realize that the positive things outweigh the negative, and we can actually consider ourselves very lucky. Let us all start the new year with a lot of courage, joy, action and good thoughts, then it can only be a good year - no matter what comes.
With best regards,
Alexander Krah