The Crisis (now, isn’t that surprising?!)

The business men and women we meet these days talk about their budget cuts and hiring freezes. They tell us how hard it is to have to get by with trying to do more with less.

How paradoxical it is that most leaders don’t realize that a time of crisis is so extraordinary. For once, we have a good reason not to meet the budget, not reach the margin promised to the stockholders. So, since it’s all screwed up anyway, we can do things differently! Shareholders are even expecting it!

Financial directors love right sizing time because they take it as an opportunity to clean up the company from all the dead wood that have been hidden in the closet or under the rug for many quarters in order to reach budgets and forecasts that are harder and harder to reach. President Obama understands that very well and his credibility is rising because he has the courage to launch transformations while the crisis is at its worse. Or in other words, when you don’t have time, it’s time to take your time, to take a step back and do it differently!

At our own humble level, we seek to meet our customer needs in these difficult times. One way to build our partnership with our customers is « Pay what you can ». For example, for one of our banking customers who’s particularly hit by this crisis, we have accepted contracts at the customers budget, at a quarter of our regular fees, as the teams truly needed them right now.