SCENARIOS
Intent of Snow Emergency Solutions Program: To utilize a proactive plan to expedite services in a snow emergency with equipment, trained manpower, and support staff available to provide emergency service throughout a pre-determined service area to help remediate the impact of major winter events.
The plan will be secured through a Pre-Season Readiness Fee based payment.
Scenario 1: Extreme Storms - Excessive Snowfall
No matter the market, large snow storms have a significant impact on all aspects of business and commerce. In these instances, normal equipment and capacity may not be enough to keep buildings open and accessible for customers and tenants. During storms such as these finding additional equipment to hire within the market can be nearly impossible – at best it is a frantic and haphazard search with little regard for compliance, onboarding, price gouging, etc. Much like the National Guard responding to natural disasters, Snow Emergency Solutions is a planned response to winter disaster situations and can be dispatched to the affected areas to aid in the snow clearing process to get businesses open. Snow Emergency Solutions can either work alongside existing vendors or alone at locations without a vendor on site. Ideally, dispatch would be done ahead of an anticipated storm in order to minimize if not prevent loss of business, increase revenues, and improve brand image. In many cases, the cost of readiness fees and mobilization of equipment can be partially if not wholly recouped by the additional revenue gained via stores and businesses being open well ahead of when they would be able without Snow Emergency Solutions.
Scenario 2: No Vendor Hired/ Inadequate Vendor Capacity (e.g. Southern and Low Snow Markets)
In areas of the country that typically don’t receive much snow, even small amounts of snow and ice can be crippling. Both contractors and municipalities are often under equipped to handle the situation. In some cases, managers opt to not hire a snow contractor at all because it snows so infrequently. The obvious ramification of either situation is that when it does snow, facilities are left with no means of clearing their site and opening the building. Much like emergency generator programs where companies opt to purchase a small number of portable backup generators that can be dispatched over a large geographic area as needed rather than purchasing a permanent backup generator for each building, Snow Emergency Solutions can be hired to be ready when needed for low snow markets rather than hiring a contractor for each location – thus reducing the fixed costs of hiring multiple contractors and offering the expertise of a properly equipped snow contractor even in areas that don’t receive much snow.
Scenario 3: Corporate and Program Level Control over Field Vendor Selection
When the process of hiring and managing snow vendors is in the hands of individual facility managers in the field, corporate facilities management may feel unable to affect control over the program that is ultimately their responsibility. Corporate management needs to be able to ensure the goals of the program are being met without stepping on individual managers’ toes. A Snow Emergency Solutions program can provide reserve snow equipment and trained personnel to corporate management that can be dispatched throughout the country at their discretion; effectively providing the company with an “umbrella insurance policy” covering unsuccessful field decisions.
Scenario 4: Vendor Failure
Vendor failure is not necessarily a factor in the first two scenarios. Vendor failure is especially prevalent in extreme situations or unusually active winter seasons. Although Snow Emergency Solutions is not a recurring service vendor, we can be dispatched to service sites due to single or large-scale vendor failure for severe storms or normal plowing operations until another recurring service vendor can be assigned.
