How PitechPlus is coping with the COVID-19 outbreak?

We are going through a time of uncertainty at all levels. This necessary lockdown is brutal and suffocates the economy. All the news and experts talk about the decrease in activity experienced by companies from a vast amount of industries. We do not know how long this will last for, but we know for a fact it impacts all of us. 

Goldman Sachs has been taking its forecasts down in steps and now sees Q2 down -34%, from -24% initially. "While the uncertainty is substantial, we expect the lockdowns and social distancing to result in sharply lower new infections over the next month, and our baseline is that slower virus spread and adaptation by businesses and individuals should set the stage for a gradual recovery in output starting in May/June," they write.

Some European states have been completely unprepared for a pandemic event and things need to be better prepared in the light of a future pandemic - with equipment, with intensive treatment units, with protocols that allow us to take care of each other and not get infected. Technology can help us to protect ourselves and continue living while protecting everyone who has a higher risk of getting sick.

It's clear that we experience a decrease in every companies' activity, with domains being hit more than others. In reality, the coronavirus outbreak massively impacts the economy and each industry is suffering, more or less, including the IT industry as it acts as a support-industry for other businesses. And then, according to the fall or rise of the activity of some industries, we are suffering too. Therefore, realism is what we need to have a good dose of at the moment. We do see some things going well, such as some company’s success in moving their activity remotely, but we know we have to be cautious because there are still unknowns. 

This is why we need to make decisions now, trying to plan for a better future. Every entrepreneur should be careful with the liquidities and this is valid especially in periods preceding the crisis because preparation for hard times does not take place during the storm. One has to permanently have in mind the idea that at some point things will turn around from positive towards negative.

What actions did we decide to take to help us cope with this outbreak? 

For PitechPlus, the most important goal has become to all go through this crisis as a FULL team without an economical loss. We are a team and we want to keep us as a full team and be together to fight through these uncertain times with a joint strength.  

We are really proud that we managed to take our activity entirely online. We actually anticipated even from early days of the COVID-19 outbreak that working from home would be safer for all of us and our families and since we have been training with working for home for a long time now, we managed to maintain the same delivery levels to our clients, even in this unusual setup. Every single employee contributed to this although we all acknowledge this period is full of uncertainties and surprises.  

Our people truly are our greatest resources and that is why we did multiple evaluations to understand what actions we need to take now, based on the available information and our forecasts for the future, so that we ensure that the impact our colleagues see is as diminished as possible. Our approach is to be cautious and prudent and take measures that will ensure we can continue as a team moving forwards in the long run.

Specifically, a major part of our colleagues is going to take at least 12 days of holiday for the following three months. This measure allows us to maintain the delivery levels and the income at the same level, with employees keeping the same earnings and with zero impact on delivering to our clients. As a precautionary measure, we also decided to cap salary increases for the rest of the year. By doing this, we are trying to achieve our most important objective of getting over this period as a full team, without a negative impact on employee’s income or client deliverables. Of course, we are assessing all the information at hand on a daily basis and we are ready to take further action, hopefully for the best.

What do we anticipate from the future? 

COVID-19 typhoon will lead to an acceleration of digitalization and automation, one at an administrative, business and society level. The way we do international business will definitely change. But since Romania is an outsourcing country, this could play to our advantage and we could see more business coming in. We are using this period to be more aggressive in gaining further business in the areas where we know we have established expertise and we try to expand our pipeline further. Our anticipation that we would need more capacity later in the year is part of the reason why we decided to take holiday days in advance. This action will allow us to increase our capacity later on in the year and it will decrease the unoccupied capacity which we are seeing as some of our clients have been impacted. During this time, it is more important than ever to keep close contact with all our clients. 

E-commerce, financial services and streaming are sectors in which we already have accumulated significant expertise and we will be focusing on converting those competencies in future projects. We have even before the outbreak started to see traction in the area of technological IP and we plan to continue to grow that further. At the same time, as part of the Webhelp Group in the last 6 months, we will continue to serve our role as their technological partners and deliver to a large array from the client portfolio on common projects. 

Times are difficult, we see lots of uncertainty and the whole planet is going through a crisis. By being close to each other, to our employees and to our clients, we try to be vigilant and put the safety and health of our people first.