Studio Volpi, Shanghai and the coronavirus outbreak

Flavia Cusaro, who has been living in Shanghai for more than 10 years, is Managing Director of Studio Volpi (Shanghai) branch office and she shared her experience during these weeks in Shanghai with a local newspaper in Varese (Italy), the area where Studio Volpi’s headquarter is located. You can find the full article here (Italian only).

Studio Volpi（上海）分公司的常务董事Flavia Cusaro已在上海生活了10多年，她向Studio Volpi总部所在地-意大利瓦雷泽的本地报社分享了自己这段时间在上海的经历。全文如下（仅意大利文）。

[…] Workwise, February was slow: Many Chinese companies had not resumed work yet, especially the production plants, or at least they were not able to plan activities or make commitments. Our Shanghai office, with the full support of our headquarter in Italy, focused on reprogramming activities and communication material. The biggest challenge was to plan the following months without counting on trade shows, which usually abound during the first half of the year.

[…]二月份的工作寥寥无几：许多中国公司（尤其是生产厂商）尚未复工，至少无法策划活动或做出承诺。在意大利总部的全力支持下，我们在上海办事处的业务集中于重新安排活动和宣传资料。最大的挑战是接下来数月的计划，那些通常在上半年举行的展会今年可能无法照常举行。

Things got better in March, week by week. Numbers of infected people lowered nationwide and people got a bit more hopeful and less nervous. The city did not or lowered preventive measures, which got even better thanks to the installation of thermos scanners replacing manual body temperature screening. More people got out of their homes, wearing their mask on, which is, and will be for a long time, required on mass transport and in public spaces. In other situations, the mask is not required by law, but everyone is simply wearing it. In March, restaurants reopened, after complying with prevention rules; public green spaces were again available; shopping centers fully extended their opening time.

三月份每周的情况均有所好转。全国范围的感染人数下降，人们变得更有希望也轻松了许多。上海市并未改变潜在病例的检查系统，并且安装了热扫描仪替代人工体温筛查。越来越多的人戴着口罩出门，在很长一段时间内，人们必须在公共交通和公共场所佩戴口罩。其他情况下法律并未要求戴口罩，但每个人都会戴着。三月，在遵守预防规则的前提下，餐馆重新开张、公共绿地再次开放、购物中心延长了营业时间。

Our daily life in the office gained speed. Many of our clients resumed work, as usual, and many of them were willing to talk about future. During the second half of the month we visited a few clients based in Shanghai and reached commercial agreements, something that seemed impossible just a few days earlier.

我们的日常生活逐渐恢复节奏。许多客户照常复工，并且其中许多客户并未受到很大影响。当月中下旬，我们拜访了一些上海客户并达成了商业协议，而这在几天前几乎不可能实现。

Personal life also found its routine back. Thanks to warmer weather, Shanghai public spaces were back to life. Green areas along the river never seemed so lively.

个人生活也恢复了常态。天气回暖，上海的公共场所恢复了生机。河边的绿化区前所未有地热闹。

Today the emergency in China is not over yet. Even though our daily life is quite back to its normal course, the tremendous containment effort is still on and has not changed much since the beginning of the outbreak. This allows people to feel much safer and we all benefit from that. Now the main risk for China are imported cases from abroad, and that’s why, a few days ago, the authorities suspended all incoming foreign visitors from entering China and international flights are now temporarily strongly reduced. Chinese nationals coming from abroad, regardless their departure country, are escorted to quarantine, at home or in selected hotels (for those coming from highly affected areas). When entering public spaces. everybody is asked to show their health QR code, which analyzes big data to estimate the risk of infection.

目前，中国的紧急情况尚未结束。我的意思是，尽管我们的日常生活已经完全恢复正常，但仍然处于封锁状态而且自疫情爆发以来并无太大变化。这可以让人们感觉更安全，我们均是受益者。中国目前面临的主要风险是境外输入病例，因此几天前当局暂停了所有外国游客的入境，国际航班暂时大幅减少。从国外归来（不管来自哪个国家）的中国公民均由专人护送到隔离区，即居家隔离或在选定的酒店隔离（针对来自受到严重影响地区的人）。每个人进入公共场所均需要出示其健康二维码，此二维码通过分析大数据来估计感染风险。

Economy is slowly recovering and, even though events and trade shows are cancelled or postponed, players have faith in the future, partly thanks to existing online platforms which are effectively compensating travel limitations. The domestic market is the main target, especially now that international markets are unstable and uncertain.

经济正在缓慢恢复，即使活动和展会取消或推迟，但参与者对未来仍充满信心，在此感谢现有在线平台有效减少了出行限制的影响。国内市场是主要目标，尤其现在国际市场不稳定且不确定。

In Studio Volpi we operate directly and physically in China and that represents a big advantage also for our headquarter in Italy, proving that internationalization of SMEs can make companies much stronger and stable. Studio Volpi is very familiar with remote working, especially when dealing with our three offices, in China, Italy and USA: Technology helps a lot. This new working condition has therefore cough us quite prepared for it and we have been able to react quickly: We are literally able to give our clients our usual attention and care in providing our services. Our Chinese partners and clients have also showed their friendship and sympathy as we continue to receive their messages of solidarity, hoping that this situation will soon end worldwide.

Studio Volpi在中国直接开展业务，这也是我们意大利总部的一大优势，证明了中小企业的国际化可以让公司变得更强大和更稳定。Studio Volpi非常熟悉远程工作，尤其是我们在中国、意大利和美国的三个办事处：技术的贡献非常大。这种新的工作条件让我们做好了充分的准备，因此我们能够迅速应对，并在服务时为我们的客户提供一如既往的关注和关心。我们的中国合作伙伴和客户也通过连续不断的支持信息表达了对我们的友好慰问，总之，希望疫情能够尽快结束。