Crisis management: focus on core business

"There are two kinds of crisis: the generalized one, caused by an unstable economic environment, in which all companies are suffering, and the micro crisis, which only affects one company, while the economy grows normally," said the Investment Manager of Global Finance, Stefan Bucataru. He is the one who saved at the beginning of the 2000s the former Sanex, the largest Romanian ceramic tiles producer, from certain bankruptcy.

Considering today managers are facing lack of training regarding strategies to apply in time of crisis, the specialists interviewed by Business Standard are talking about cutting costs without affecting development, foregoing business lines when markets are falling, selecting clients using stricter criteria, and investing only in the core business.

The Country Managing Partner of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania financial service provider, Vasile Iuga, said that maintaining a good relation with lenders is very significant. He also stressed the importance of making operations more efficient by selling poor performing assets, or activity branches, and maintaining a good level of liquidity.

"At the same time, cutting cost measures must be integrated in sound strategies for optimizing profitability, strategies that must not lose sight of good risk management, such as, the risk of laying off talented people, or the risk of the impact of cost-cutting on the employees morale," he added.The Managing Director of Raiffeisen Investment Romania, Ioana Filipescu focuses on a different type of risk. "In their chase to spare their liquidities, managers will have to be careful not to cut costs too much, and lay off massively those who provide for their existence tomorrow, because, undoubtedly, a time will come when economic growth revives," Filipescu said.

The Managing Partner of SOAR Management and Investment, Valeriu Nistor, draws attention on the lack of communication between involved parties and speculating temptations.

Business Standard