Facts and Opinions About Crisis

Below, I will share some facts and opinions, each time indicating whether it is a fact or an opinion. With regards to opinions, everyone has their own. It is not my goal to convince anyone, but simply to make people think. Perhaps my observations will prove to be valuable for someone.

1. (OPINION) By working with large companies that regularly conduct research among their clients, and by observing our database, I make a hypothesis that if the crisis comes – the branches of large/global companies will be hit the most in Poland. They are much more exposed to the global situation, and disregard local conditions. At the same time, while talking to clients from the US and the West, I hypothesize that Polish SMEs will at least endure the potential crisis well. For various reasons, the crisis may cause an increase in demand for services and products in Polish SMEs (especially those with their entire supply chain in PL or EU).

2. (FACT) We are seeing a large increase in the interest in consulting services for arranging and optimizing processes in sales, marketing and management. In our case, the highest growth is in the sector of large enterprises that employ more than 1,000 people. This is a surprise to me, because usually these companies only wanted to buy training and development services for their staff. More and more often, ineffective processes from the past, which may prevent the crisis from passing through, are mentioned in talks.

3. (OPINION) In recent years, due to, inter alia, monetary policy and good economic conditions, keeping cash in your company was stigmatized. It has often been said that keeping cash is actually slowing down the growth of your business. Today, a large proportion of companies, especially young ones, keep less than the equivalent of one month’s fixed costs. To make matters worse, we see more and more difficulties in debt collection. If I combine these two situations and the possible deterioration of the situation – I do not need to explain what may happen.

4. (OPINION) Currently, there are a lot of sales, marketing and management specialists who are convinced of their competences on the market. At the same time, a very large part of them have worked in companies that operated on a growing market, where growth was generated mostly by itself. This can be a big problem for companies that will now be looking for such specialists, but due to their inexperience in a negative market, they can do more harm than good.

5. (FACT) We are already seeing a decline in leads in companies that sell products and services that were purchased in very long purchasing processes and which require high investments, e.g. ERP systems. We are also seeing declines in companies that provide services/products that can be dispensed with, and which require the implementation of, e.g. innovative applications. In one such case, pipeline shrinkage is over 70%.

6. (OPINION) The living costs of employees are rising drastically. This in turn is causing high turnover, with more and more employees now looking for a job and a higher salary. At the same time, many of them have not invested in their development in recent years, and their need for higher salaries is dictated only by the cost of living, and not by real competences. If there is a crisis, it can be an interesting mixture – because in addition to the downturn in the economy, there may be a bigger problem than ever with the recruitment and retention of specialists.