On Saturday 9 May the newspaper “Il Cittadino di Monza e Brianza” has interviewed Fabio Corno, Professor of Business Economics at the University of Milan-Bicocca and Managing Partner of Studio Corno.
The main topic: to analyze the challenges Italian companies will face in “phase 2”, which has started on 4 May..
Here are the main aspects that a company should consider in Phase 2, according to Fabio Corno:
“In addition to cash control, a company today has to control customers, employees and the whole supply chain. One has to diversify suppliers also on a geographical basis, in order to avoid the risk of a new total lockdown. We have already witnessed companies to abandon a total reliance on Chinese suppliers: we need alternative sources as well, closer to our factories even though more expensive “.
To overcome the consequences of Covid-19, explains Fabio Corno, two are the keywords: “Great speed and good discipline”, both characteristics of a “resilient company”:
“Speed is crucial because even in the early stages of the recession and during the recovery, fast companies are those who may seize the opportunities that the market offers them. They manage to cut costs, as well as to grow. As far as cost cutting is concerned, in Italy we are witnessing the use of redundancy payments: 95% of our clients have used this possibility. Then we’ll have to figure out what happens next.
The possibility for companies to diversify is another aspect to consider:
“There are good deals that companies can do, for example, by mapping the possibility of diversifying their businesses. Companies need to prepare a resilience plan, including the mapping of main risks, designing possible scenarios, elaborating stress tests. We don’t just have to look at what happens to ourselves: we need to look at everyone who works in the supply chain”.