Priorities in times of crisis: focusing on current clients and foregoing surplus

“It is not enough to say “we are laying off 500 people,” and then ask each department to choose 10-20 employees. You have to see whether sales, marketing, promotion are more important now than before,” said Kurt Weber, Managing Director of the Horvath&Partners management advisory company, one of the more experienced restructuring consultants on the local market.

Weber said that the main problem in Romanian companies is the lack of transparency regarding costs. Local management does not control the way in which funds are spent, and which departments or internal processes spend more money than they bring into the business.

“Local managers just make decisions such as: we will abandon training, we will stop travelling. But how much do training costs make up in total expenses? One percent? How does one percent help me if the market dropped 20-30 percent?” Weber added.