“If we want to be realistic, and without falling into pessimism, we cannot fail to see for the autumn serious problems for our businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones. Even before the pandemic, a change in the business model was underway that Covid19 has accelerated by adding a high degree of uncertainty to it". Stephen Cuzzilla, President of Federmanager, is a volcanic character used to face problems with strength and inclined by nature to optimism. But right now he can't help but look with concern at the signals coming from the industrial world, where difficulties have already forced painful cuts both to managers' salaries and to the actual loss of jobs. If uncertainty and fear of the future continue to dominate among entrepreneurs, investment will decline, and indeed many will make gods workforce cuts to put yourself in the best position to withstand the storm caused by drop in demand both on the domestic and on the international market.
Federmanager, together with the other executive federations grouped in the Cidasent to the Government a project to relaunch our economy, divided into numerous detailed proposals ranging in all sectors (from infrastructure to education) in which it is necessary to intervene in an organic way to fill ancient delays and overcome the recent fears created by the health emergency.
“The role of executives – says Cuzzilla – will be fundamental in both the private and public sectors. It is necessary to sit down at a table with the Government and Confindustria to see how to help entrepreneurs to bring new managers into the company and how the Public Administration can strengthen its skills (which also exist and must be valorised) with external contributions, perhaps temporary, which make it possible to manage effectively and efficiently the many financial resources that are arriving both from Europe and from the markets, in order to make investments useful for increasing the competitiveness and growth potential of our economy”.
Fear or, in any case, prudence seems to prevail among companies at the moment because there isn't much visibility on the future, on how consumer tastes will change, on how the very lifestyle habits of people who have discovered the convenience of working from home will change. For many entrepreneurs, especially small and medium-sized ones, this is not the time to make investments or to take on new costs to hire managers who can help companies change their operating model in depth. On the contrary, many are thinking of firing, of even reducing managerial contributions.
“That is precisely the main problem. Companies should accelerate the process of change that was already underway and which concerns sustainability, i.e. greater attention to the environment and a different relationship with the surrounding area, a more dynamic approach to the financial markets, a decisive opening towards internationalisation. But it is often necessary to do so place experienced managers in the company, which can support the entrepreneur and open new and different business spaces. But in a moment of crisis who risks increasing their costs to hire, for example, an export manager or an energy manager? It is precisely in this case that the State, as part of an industrial policy aimed not only at safeguarding the existing productive assets, but at strengthening it and making it more competitive, should provide specific support for the entry into the company of managers, perhaps on a temporary basis. If the operation is successful, as I believe, then the entrepreneurs themselves will be interested in stabilizing the hiring of these managers”.
But the public sector would also need new contributions from experts given that today the State is being asked to take on a more active role certainly in the sector of tangible and intangible infrastructures and by some even in the direct management of companies or in dictating strategic guidelines.
“Whatever role the public sector wants to assume, there is no doubt that the responsibility will fall on its shoulders to manage well the recourses that will come from Europe and those deriving from the increase in our debt (which in any case we will have to be able to repay). The experience of managers who perhaps come from private companies could be indispensable. There will have to be a greater transition between private and public to make the most of skills and experience. We have to manage a great process of change: we will have to have a different and more efficient state, but businesses will also have to change from a cultural, organizational and technological point of view. We will all have to agree on putting work at the center of our real rebirth. Work is not just a salary, a biblical sentence that serves to bring bread home, it is man's fulfillment, it is an increase in self-esteem, it is an improvement in the quality of life. The subsidy is used in emergency phases. But without work there is no social cohesion or true progress of the nation”.
In short, we are in a bottleneck that can lead us towards open and peaceful pastures or it will lead us to continue marching on the edge of a ravine with the risk of falling if we get distracted for just a moment.
“I want to be optimistic – concludes Cuzzilla – Italy has the human and material potential to recover, to become a protagonist in the world again. It is the moment of maximum social cohesion. In the past months we have faced the health emergency phase with discipline and a positive spirit. Now I hope that an open and sincere dialogue will be opened between the Government, trade unions, entrepreneurs and social actors such as managers, to give cohesion to the renewal effort that we will have to face. Only in this way will we be able to overcome fears and look positively towards our future”.
