Another extraordinary week. The pace at which life and business as we know it has changed is remarkable.

Dealers from all around the country, who specialise in all machinery areas (agriculture, commercial groundcare and domestic garden machinery), have been forced to make some incredibly difficult decisions. Most likely the most difficult business decisions of their lives.

Fundamentally, do they remain open and if they do, in what capacity? Is it OK to shut the showroom and continue with the workshop? Or to make deliveries? These are the questions which dealers have been wrestling with this week.

This decision has been made all the more difficult by the official guidelines issued by government being, shall we say, open to interpretation.

Firstly, what must be said, where there is no doubt, is in the safe working practices which must be adhered to which we have all heard so much about these past weeks. Plus of course, those jobs which can be carried out from home (accounts, admin, HR etc), having to be being carried out from home.

Where the lack of clarity comes for dealers is when you pose the question, are dealers and their technician staff classed as essential key workers and is their retail business one of those on the government's list of retailers exempt from closure ?

In order to attempt to gain a sense of what the industry's thoughts are on questions such as these, Service Dealer organised a conference Zoom call on Wednesday morning this week (March 25th), which included many of our commercial partners (manufacturers, suppliers, business support services) as well as representatives of industry trade bodies.

Editor Steve Gibbs taking notes during Service Dealer's think tank, Zoom meeting this week

Our intention was to chat through what had been developing this week with the government advice and, as best as we could, see if we could reach some sort of consensus of advice which we could pass on to you, our dealer readers.

As you might expect, the advice to agricultural machinery dealers is probably the clearest. The link between the work carried out in this sector and the preservation of the food production chain is unarguable.

In fact late last night, "Agricultural supplies shops" was added as a new entry to the government list.

You can read what AEA Chief Executive, Ruth Bailey had to tell us on this issue, here. And the thoughts which came out of the group discussion here.

What is more confusing and less clear however, is that for dealers whose business is concerned with the sale and service of commercial grasscare or domestic garden machinery, are these businesses exempt from closing?

As I'm sure our readers are very much aware, a term which was used in the government guidelines this week as a retail business exempt from closure, was 'hardware' store - which was subsequently extended last night to also include "equipment, plant and tool hire". Out of all the business descriptions used in the guidelines, this would be the one which, if an individual dealer so desired, could presumably be applied to themselves.

You can read the thoughts which arose from our group discussion regarding groundscare dealers here and domestic garden machinery dealers here.

From what Service Dealer can gather from dealers across the country this week, through conversations, social media and online channels, many dealers of groundscare and domestic machinery have indeed closed their showroom doors. Some have kept their workshops going, others have felt that wasn't right for them and closed entirely.

Due to measures such as these dealers will of course be concerned about their staff. Keith Christian, director of BAGMA, offered advice on this subject during our conference call, which you can read here. 

There won't of course be a one-size fits all solution to this. All the while there is this ambiguity from a governmental level, decisions will continue to be made by individual dealers as to what is right for them.

Service Dealer shall be running these group industry discussion sessions on a regular, ongoing basis - always with the intention of keeping our readers up-to-date with the current thinking.

Also today, to offer our readers some extra assistance in these confusing times, Service Dealer magazine's SME Digest editor, Adam Bernstein, is kicking off a series of Business Support articles in each edition of this Weekly Update.

In today's one, Adam is offering some further advice for employers dealing with employees at this time. He looks at health & safety; sick pay; sending workers home; layings off; and what to do with staff about to join.

In the coming weeks Adam will be offering tips and advice on all manor of subjects which should hopefully help small business mitigate these unprecedented times.

As ever, we'd appreciate hearing your thoughts and opinions - so please do feel free to leave comments under any article.

Stay safe.