Beijing Bunker: "We Did Not Anticipate the Huge Negative Impact the Virus Would Have on Businesses"

As Beijing enters its seventh week in self-quarantine, the stories of how people have been dealing with the coronavirus outbreak – by staying, leaving, or watching on from afar – are many and varied. In Beijing Bunker, we quiz Beijingers on what approach they've been taking to stay safe and sane through the ordeal.

At the best of times, running a business is a battle, an endless challenge to stay ahead of the competition and turn a profit. In a post-COVID-19 world, however, those challenges have not only grown in scale but morphed into something entirely unrecognizable. In this series, we talk to expat-entrepreneurs and find out what they’re doing to remain successful in business, and happy at home.

Many expat families with school-aged children, as well as educators, fled the capital in the hopes of keeping themselves safe as the worst of the pandemic was yet to come. Those who remained had to contend with everything from massive social and financial fallouts to a lengthy delay in the spring semester.

For Fredric Lampron and his family, it was doubly perilous as they were initially at the epicenter of the crisis, Wuhan, which they chose to leave before the city went into lockdown. Now safely in Beijing with his wife and newborn son, Lampron is taking it one day at a time and hoping for a brighter tomorrow, not only for himself, his family and his business, but also for other Beijing-based expat businesses.

How long have you and your family been in China?
I moved to China in 2003 in order to work as a teacher. I have been here since. I married my wife Reina in 2007, and our child was born in January this year.

What do you do and how long have you been in business?
I work as a teacher in the preschool, Little Scholars/Tiandoudou, which my wife and I own. She manages it as the principal. The school opened up in 2011, and we have been growing ever since.

What were you and your family’s initial reactions when COVID-19 hit the news?
Relief, as we had taken our newborn out of Wuhan where he was born, a week prior to the news. In retrospect, it was definitely a good idea to book a full business class cabin for our return to Beijing, six seats for the four adults present. We did it to minimize our newborn’s exposure to normal germs and viruses, but it turned out to be an even more important precaution in hindsight.

What were your expectations as far as the virus and its effect on daily life and business in Beijing?
We expected a slight delay in the return of children to school of maybe a few weeks. Now as I answer these questions, it seems that the delay will be several more weeks, perhaps even up to two months.

We certainly did not anticipate the huge negative impact the virus and quarantine would have on businesses, especially on restaurants and associated businesses.

What has been the reality for you and your family?
The initial adjustment to the quarantine was particularly stressful, as Reina had to deal with the consequences (financial and logistical) of students not returning to school and parents demanding online courses. She also had to deal with staff that was stranded abroad.

Since then, the situation has calmed significantly. And now that we are housebound, we are taking advantage of the situation to spend more time with our newborn son Antoine. It has also given us more time to pursue hobbies.

How has your business been affected by the current situation?
The reality of the quarantine has made it impossible to continue business-as-usual. Classes cannot be conducted in person, yet the students’ parents still want interaction between the students and their foreign teachers during this time. We’ve settled on sending fun and engaging activity packages to the students to maintain their knowledge and good habits, while offering meet-up times for parents interested in talk-time between the children and their foreign teachers.

Obviously, the school will take a financial hit this year, and we expect to use up a significant portion of our emergency reserves in order to ride out the quarantine.

What form of support have you received from the expat community here in Beijing, for both your family’s and business’ well-being?
Our business caters to the local Chinese community, so the expat community does not really come into the picture. We are, however, grateful to our teachers who are part of the expat community, for their positive attitudes as we navigate our way through this hard time together.

Do you believe the current situation will change the face of business in Beijing? 
We certainly do expect a change in the business landscape. Big companies with deeper pockets will be able to ride out the storm, while smaller companies are already considering or undergoing bankruptcy. We will likely see quite a few smaller businesses go out of business or be acquired by larger businesses.

We are also hearing news of foreign teachers quitting or being laid off, which suggests the landscape is already changing as smaller companies run out of funds for their staff.

What are some of the plans you have set in place for your business to ensure it is not adversely affected by such an unexpected situation?
Unfortunately, there seems to not be much we can do aside from ensuring that there is enough money stashed away in the school’s emergency reserves to handle such a crisis.

We are rather fortunate to have a modest emergency reserve in place to help ride this current storm out. Had this epidemic happened a year or two ago, the school might have been facing an existential crisis.

Have you been deterred from doing business in Beijing, or are you here to stay?
This school was not just founded by Reina and me; it was founded with the help and cooperation of colleagues – foreign teachers we had worked with and befriended at another school – that joined us so that they could provide the best education they could under an administration that would work with them rather than against them. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could start our own school and be able to do things right?” was a sentiment often shared among us during our regular Friday dinner gathering.

We are still committed to that dream and are definitely here to stay.

What advice would you give to other business owners at this time?
We are not really in a position to advise any other business owners. For those facing possible bankruptcy, perhaps we can advise them to seek financial aid in the form of bank loans and/or investors, to see them through this current crisis.

Reina received a phone call from the Bank of China informing her that the bank was willing to facilitate, simplify, and speed up loan applications for struggling businesses.

How can other expat families show their support for business owners?
I have no idea if GoFundMe works in China or if there is an easily accessible Chinese equivalent, but perhaps struggling businesses could reach out to the expat community for support in that way.

Like many of my expat friends and colleagues, I fear that some of my favorite restaurants may go under before the epidemic is resolved. I wouldn’t mind making a few donations if it means keeping them around.

Any words of encouragement or hope for the international community as a whole?
To business owners I’d say, do your best to hold on through the crisis. Little Scholars has gone through two other financial/logistic crises during its nine years of existence, each one is more serious than the current one. If the worst happens and the business fails, learn from it and try again. If you make it through the storm, learn from it and be better prepared next time.

Click here to read all the latest on when Beijing's schools are likely to reopen.

This article originally appeared on our sister site beijingkids.

Photos courtesy of Reina Lampron