Podcast: Dealing with the Crisis
9 May 2020
During a career of 20 years, the founder of Eupnea Panagiotis Dimitrelis has lived through a number of crises already. He clearly remembers the european sovereign debt crisis which involved many european countries including country-born Greece for many years, the financial crisis in 2007 and the chinese stock market crash in 2015, however he considers the current crisis that we are experiencing to be unique in nature, with origins not financial but cultural and dynamic to have severe economic consequences in various societies across the globe and cause extreme financial difficulty to a majority of businesses. Focusing on how businesses can deal more decisively with this crisis he discusses of certain areas and provides his view of the way forward for most businesses.
The Eupnea Team: How would you describe the current situation that businesses are experiencing due to the pandemic?
Panagiotis Dimitrelis: The situation that businesses are currently going through is almost unprecedented. The vast majority of businesses need to adapt quickly to the currently extreme levels of disruption that they are facing across their operations and employees and brace themselves for new unseen levels of volatility and uncertainty and potentially further disruption in the aftermath of the pandemic and through a new era.
The Eupnea Team: What has been the impact of the pandemic in business and across our societies?
Panagiotis Dimitrelis: The crisis has global remit but is unfolding in different proportions across industries and markets and for different societies and economies. Various routes to market are distorted and the global supply chain is disrupted which is a very challenging situation for businesses.
The Eupnea Team: How can businesses deal with this crisis effectively?
Panagiotis Dimitrelis: Most businesses are trying to respond positively to this cultural disruptive event, however with our economy being brought to a halt, business sentiment heading south and a grim outlook for a number of industries, the way forward for most businesses is to stay focused, ignore the noise, shift their business models, resume and support activity and drastically align to the current market conditions with a forward view.
The Eupnea Team: Are there any particular areas that businesses could focus on for navigating through the crisis more decisively?
Panagiotis Dimitrelis: It largely depends on the characteristics of each business how they can respond to the crisis decisively, their foundations and situation prior to the crisis and preparedness for dealing with a crisis of this magnitude.
Undoubtedly, it has magnified vulnerabilities over strengths for many businesses and lack of focus and exposure in certain areas.
Redefining customer engagement, enhancing business mobility, reimagining the workplace and strengthening organisational culture are amongst the areas that most businesses are called to deliver change quickly in addition to reinforcing lines of defence for operational efficiency and financial resilience and continuing transformation in certain areas through Digital and new capabilities.