Covid is making casualties! Not only in hospitals but also in the economy. With the second European lockdown, comes a new wave of bankruptcies and Chapter 11 requests. Will only the AGILE survive?
Thomas Cook, Alitalia, restaurant chains such as Byron and Carluccio’s, boek.be, real estate trusts (Intu Properties), satellite launch companies (OneWeb), they are all going down. Even football clubs like FC Kaiserslautern are struggling. The list of bankruptcies is endless and across (almost) all sectors. One could thus argue that there is no clear distinction between businesses flirting with bankruptcy.
And there it is: AGILITY. Who’s surviving this crisis? Well, survival doesn’t depend on size, market share, sector or international reach. It depends on the ability to adapt fast to new situations!
In retail for example, Zalando or Zara are surviving, while Arcadia (owner of Burton, Topman, Topshop, etc.) is broke and starts to liquidate its stock. Philip Green – chairman of Arcadia – is known to be starkly against converting to digital/online retail or changing its business model. Coincident? I don’t think so.
Only the AGILE survive!
©2020 – Nicolas De Greef
