Covid-19: How does your business fare? Seek&Care answers!

How has Seek&Care helped the Belgian healthcare system during the last weeks marked by the pandemic?

Through the Covid-19 crisis, SeekandCare has been able to provide sensitive products to different healthcare institutions. We served, among others, hospitals (CHU Tivoli, AZ Sint Niklaas, Chirec, Erasme…), old age houses (Orpea, Sartage…), drugstores and other public institutions like Iriscare. We worked also in close collaboration with Santhea, the FAMPH, HEX laboratory…. Thanks to our agility, we could quickly get in touch with new suppliers directly who were directly working with Asian manufacturers. Those connections, together with a thorough analysis of the products imported – we were always asking samples to the manufacturers before committing to larger quantities – were decisive to supply the right products in a timely manner.  We also had the opportunity to take part to a private initiative called Medical Equipment for Belgium which is a group of motivated entrepreneurs, executives, finance experts and private investors acting on a voluntary basis in order to provide the needed material to the Belgian healthcare institutions.

Did you sleep during those last weeks?

Not really…. since the end of February we worked night and day 24/7 to be able to provide a reactive support to the members of the platform. Since we were considered as a « critical activity », we kept on meeting everyday physically … but could at least enjoy the traffic-free roads on the way to the office.

Can you illustrate your support by sharing some numbers with us?

We were able to provide 2 million gloves to Iriscare, doubled the number of active users on the platform and made a turnover of more than 3 million euros during those last two months.

What lessons concerning your business life have you learned during this particular period of time? Has something specific left an impression?

Working with trustworthy partners, suppliers and manufacturers is key. As often during a global crisis, some people try to take advantage of the general confusion (legal, political, sanitary….) for their personal benefit. For each product that was proposed by a new supplier on the platform, we made an in-depth analysis and carefully followed the ins and out of the whole sourcing process. Quality has always been the main focus in our startup since customer satisfaction is at the core of our DNA !