A world will be different in PostCovid-19
At the juncture of more than four months and counting Amit Eytan, Malca-Amit Group of Companies said at WDC, The view from Tel Aviv and around the world! My last trip abroad was in January. It was to the United States, where I visited New York City and Miami. I remember watching the TV news and hearing about an unusual flu-like virus that had been detected in Wuhan, and later talking about it with my staff in the Far East. At the time, I recall thinking: “Another SARS, far away in China. Just ignore it, stick to your agenda and it will go away soon.”
My travel schedule for the first quarter had included Johannesburg and India, and then a trip to the Far East, during which both I and my spouse would celebrate our birthdays touring Japan. As you may guess, this all did not happen.
After 32 years of practically residing in airports around the world and earning a PhD in business lounges, I am finally homebound. Yes, not by choice and I wish under different circumstances, but that’s life. January seems so far off now and as I am getting used to a new reality, spending my days “Zooming” like a bee between our 73 offices. The period has forced me to go into creative mode, finding solutions for cash flow, cost-cutting and new sources of income.
Once, during a different major crisis, someone I know told me that “everything happens for a reason.” It’s a comforting view I’d say, but, hey, one must keep positive and have something to look forward to.
At Malca-Amit, we are long accustomed to adapting to the rules and practices in the many countries we provide logistic services. Since some reacted rather fast to the COVID pandemic, while others hesitated and lagged behind, we needed to have multiple and adjustable plans in place. Constantly modifying our practices so that we could comply with new rules being applied at the local level, not to mention the changed business reality, has brought with it lots of challenges.
It took us a few weeks to realize that this event, in contrast to the 2008/9 financial crisis for example, would be different from others we had experienced. It will be longer, tougher to handle and totally unpredictable.
Our first concern was cash flow. How do we make the best use of the oxygen available in our tanks? The fact that, in 2019, we completed a three-year restructuring program certainly helped.
The first action taken was to set an example internally. We needed to send a message across the organization that something big was happening, and that the task of dealing with it would be fairly distributed. We let it be known that we were reducing management’s salaries and holding back on paying 2019 bonuses and dividends. Loyalty is a two-way street, and we wanted to minimize the effect on lower-paid employees while avoiding layoffs. Similar action had been taken during the 2008/9 financial crisis and brought very positive results.
The second set of actions we took was to ensure that the organization did not seem to be going into frozen mode. We quickly realized that we had two options. The first was to become overwhelmed by news coverage, becoming depressed and despondent. The other was to be proactive and take control of the situation. We choose the latter.
