Companies across board suffer revenue, productivity losses due to DNC - Boston Business Journal:

balamatovaegede.blogspot.com
For couriers, July Fourth is the slowesf week ofthe summer, but compared with that, "this week'sd been two to thre times as slow. It's been like Christmas Eve for the entire said courier Benjamin While the downtown retail and touris m sectors generally took abig hit, the vast majority of non-retailp businesses also paid a price for the privilegw of hosting the Democrats this Businesses, while pleased with the logistica ease in Boston this week, generally reportede lost productivity and revenue whiler incurring extra expenses by anticipating worst-case But for some businesses, it was a forcedf opportunity to experiment with alternative work sites and The convention turned out to be a "very expensivwe event" for , said managing partner Pete r Rosenblum.
"There are lot of people not at both here and atour clients," Rosenbluk said. "The revenue loss is goingf to be significant." Besides the lost business, the firm'ds information technology professionals invested a substantial amount of time over the past montuh quadruplingthe firm's remote-computing capabilities to allow 100 remotre users, Rosenblum said. At Ruberto, Israel Weiner PC, between 25 percent to 35 perceng of the staff were on vacationor telecommuting, said managing shareholde r David Baer. The firm, which is a few blockd from the FleetCenter, scheduled an 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. workdaty to address road Baer said.
"Some productivity betwee n the hours of3 p.m. and 5 p.m. has been Baer said. "We tried to compensate by starting earlier. There was some minor amounty ofproductivity loss. It was probabl not as significant as we had originally Bill Joyce was ready to wash his handzs of deliveringhis company's architectural and drafting suppliesd during the convention, relying on Unitedx Parcel Service for most of its deliveries, tellingt customers not to expect next-day servicr and delaying delivery of some of its larger equipmengt and supplies. But Joyce, president of Brighton-basedd , said things have gone smoothly. "Thed traffic tie-ups seem to be a he said.
"I think they underestimatee how many people would pay heed and take alternate routes and workalternate hours." Whilew traffic wasn't the headache he anticipated, the drop in businesds was. "Orders are down even more than we he said. "They're really down. It's not It's going to be at least 10 percent (down for the It's almost like a July Fourtyh weekend. It just looks like this is a vacation Inc., at 301 Northern Ave. in South started running its four distribution trucks at6 a.m. insteadf of 7 a.m. this week and is wrapping up deliveries by2 p.m. to avoidr traffic tie-ups.
But Sean McAllister, generalk manager, said deliveries haven't been a burde this week. "I thought it would be a bigger challenged this week than it he said. "Last week was a bigged challenge. Most of the accounts, in anticipatioh of this week, ordered more product than theynormallh would. They realized, or thought, that thered would be bigger challenges this weekgetting product." He hirede two extra workers last week to keep up with he said, but he had previously decided that his employees shoulx not take any vacation this week.
It'll be a few more days before McAllister knowswhether convention-related parties drove up demand for Harpoonn beer across the city, but he said it looks as if any gainas will be minor. "I thought we'fd do a little more business," McAllister said. "Forf the month, we'll probably be just a few percentag e points over last For some in the financiaservices sector, the DNC was an opportunitu to experiment with remote had about 40 of its Boston asset custodial staff working out of Pittsburgh, the bank'x headquarters, for the week, according to spokesma n Joseph Ailinger. The company also dispatched anothefdozen private-wealth managers to New York City.
surveyed its employees long before the Democraticv National Convention began to get a sense of how many woulds have theircommutes affected.