Blog

I'm an entrepreneur at heart, directly involved in the startup phenomenon (I dedicated a big chunk of the last ten years to building sound business models for my companies). Since 2020 has been a remarkable year for obvious reasons, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of my thoughts with you about what's been happening lately in my field of expertise. 

The premise 

Many companies are facing an identity crisis, as the global recession is quickly brewing up. The Covid-19 pandemic has put a halt to a robust economic expansion, triggering a sharp rise in unemployment and forcing governments all over Europe to find new ways of avoiding collapse. 

While European policymakers focus on getting economies back on their feet, the crisis could signal the beginning of a new dawn for EU businesses. Could it really? 

An in-depth look at statistics 

European startups funding got slashed by 20% in the first half of 2020. This figure might seem significant, but it's still one billion dollars higher than the 2018 numbers. And there's something else too: 2019 marked the most significant funding for venture funds. Ever.

 

Graph showing the evolution of EU startup investments from 2016 to 2020 

Source: crunchbase.com 

To put things into perspective, 904 EU startups raised funding above $2 million in the first half of 2020. The year before, nearly 1.000 companies raised at least $2 million.  

As for leading markets, the U.K startups attracted the most funds during the first six months of 2020 (twice more than the second place holder, Germany). France, Sweden, and Switzerland follow next. 

Graph showing the volume of startup investments in five leading EU countries 

Source: crunchbase.com 

Inevitably, I need to draw a parallel between Europe and North America, the Land of Opportunity for new companies. Europe's startup business peaked at a different time than its U.S counterpart. For Europe, the upward trend in startup funding began in 2018 and carried on until Q4 2019. For the Americans, 2018 was the pinnacle.  

I don't want to bore you with too much data, so let me tell you why things are about to change for European startups. It has to do with how fast and prompt they reacted to the pandemic. 

A strong response to Covid-19 

Many European countries have managed to get the pandemic under control faster than the U.S, while also preserving jobs better during the lockdown, rather than allowing unemployment to grow at an alarming rate. 

Therefore, EU startups are now prepared to receive with open arms all skilled people who lost their jobs in the U.S. This truly is an excellent opportunity for European businesses to develop further and see their stocks grow in the short term. 

Naturally, the sectors most likely to see a boost soon are those that amassed increased funding for quarter over quarter and year over year: biotechnology, e-commerce, science, and health care.  

That hardly comes as a surprise. Numerous European startups from these sectors came forward with unique products to combat the pandemic. It was an extraordinary moment for every player, big or small, to flex their muscles and show what they can achieve. 

Special mention for e-commerce companies that have garnered plenty of publicity and funding during the global lockdown. 

Three new EU companies breached the $1 billion valuations

Three European startups joined the select unicorn group during the past quarter. 

A couple of consistent fund injections (one worth of $240 million and another $35 million) were enough for Berlin-based Lilium to reach $1 billion valuations in June. The company activates in the airline industry.  

The UK-based car platform Cazoo joined the unicorn ranks, achieving another impressive feat along the way: it became the fastest European company to get to $1 billion, less than 18 months from its founding. 

Workhuman, headquartered in Dublin, provides cloud-based software management solutions. By raising $122 million from existing shareholders the past quarter, Workhuman reached a $1.2 billion valuation, a result that placed it on the unicorn board. 

What about Romanian startups? 

I left my beloved country last for a good reason: I plan to talk in detail about something that caught my eye about Romania's startups. 

According to a recent study published by Dealroom, Romania ranks first among Central and Eastern European countries when it comes to investments in local startups in the previous seven years. 

Since 2013, Romanian startups have raised $1.3 billion in investment, same as Estonian startups. Poland occupies third place with $0.9 billion investments, followed by Lithuania ($0.6 billion) and Hungary ($0.3 billion). 

In the last decade, the Central and Eastern European region has created eight unicorns - private companies valued at $1+ billion. Romania gave two unicorns from this list: UiPath, a company specialized in providing software solutions, recently valued at over $10 billion*, and eMAG.  

*Quick note: UIPath leveled up to decacorn status now, exceeding $10 billion in market value. 

In the first half of 2020, more than 20 tech Romanian startups raised capital from venture capital funds, business angels, and crowdfunding. 

The burning question – to launch or not to launch a startup in 2020? 

I think we could witness the European startups' turn to take the spotlight, ahead of their U.S and Asian equivalent. But only time will tell how things are going to unfold. I'm optimistic. 

You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

Lately, I’ve spent more time than usual analyzing the markets. Just like most investors, I was interested in how they will react to this Covid-19 pandemic. Do you know what caught my attention? Not the stock market rising from the ashes like a Phoenix. Or the incredible gold rally. Not even what happened to oil from February up to now. No, I’m talking about something else: soft commodities.

Stay with me, and I will tell you why the soft commodities market is the next big thing I will put money in.

 

Numbers don’t lie

Cocoa, coffee, cotton, sugar. Four of the goods we all use in our everyday lives. And guess what? It happens they’re among the best performing financial assets nowadays. For example, sugar prices jumped 20% since May. Cocoa, coffee, and cotton became a lot more valuable as well, posting double-digit figures increases as well.

 

But here's the exciting thing: between March and May, all these common goods were cheap as chips. The pandemic was taking its toll on them too. Prices were extremely low, and nothing was pointing at a change.

Naturally, I became very curious to find reasons for this sudden shift. From May until now, deep into August, the soft commodities market thrived. Just a couple of months earlier, prices were down below sea level. So, I started digging out deep in my quest to find some answers and a potentially exciting trading opportunity.

Let me tell you some of the reasons why I believe the soft commodities market is looking better than ever.

 

Supply shortages got everybody worried

Brazil and India, two of the world’s biggest soft commodities producers, are forced to deal with the harshest effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. They’re both in the top three worst-hit nations globally. Hundreds of thousands of people have already died there.

Brazil is the largest manufacturer of coffee and sugar, with tens of million bags of coffee and hundreds of million metric tons of sugar cane produced in 2019 alone. India produces the most cotton on earth. Even more than Europe makes with all its 40+ countries.

But here’s the issue. Investors anticipate supply constraints are closing in, as both Brazil and India will need to put their economies back on track when the crisis ends. With smaller supplies on the horizon due to workforce shortages, prices for soft commodities futures can only go up. Another reason for the bullish trend is that many people are stuck at home, and the demand for goods such as coffee and sugar tends to rise under these circumstances. Also, as soon as the economy starts recovering, we can only witness a boost in demand.

 

The U.S Dollar, no longer safe

The Dollar Index, which measures the power of the U.S Dollar compared to several other major currencies, has recorded its worst month in almost ten years. That spells excellent news for soft commodity prices, as a weaker Dollar makes it more affordable for importing nations to buy commodities priced in the U.S. currency.

Investors betting against soft commodities had to cut their short positions. In early August, the "performers" were the coffee shorts, with more than 19,000 contracts wiped out of existence.

Fewer bearish supporters of soft commodities mean there's more room for optimism in this market. Together with improved market sentiment, prices should continue to rise until something truly unexpected occurs. For the moment, investors don't expect such a thing to happen. 

 

Game over for the gold rally – or so it seems

Gold lost 5.72% on Tuesday, August 11, marking the most significant single-day decline in seven years. It also fell below $1.900/ounce for the first time since July 24. That's quite a negative record.

I did my homework and checked what investors believe happened. Here's what I found out: many experts believe gold is overbought. Optimism is growing among small businesses worldwide. The risk-appetite attitude seems to return (slowly, but surely). 

Don't get me wrong: that doesn't imply people stopped looking for safe havens. Not by any means. It just shows that gold might no longer belong in this category anymore. I think the U.S Dollar faces the same issue as well.

It always happens like this: in the beginning, investors run to what they believe is their safest bet. As soon as things appear to take a turn for the better, they shift by 180 degrees. And then other opportunities start to look more clearly.

 

Final Words

The markets remain uncertain, as the pandemic is far from over. Now we need to protect our investments more than ever since danger looms.

What do we have left when gold and the U.S Dollar stopped proving their utility as hedging instruments? There's only one market we can turn our attention towards. And that's precisely the soft commodities products I've been talking about. I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm counting on them. 

Make sure you follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more useful insights & commentary!

The past

After a mixed Q1 earnings performance (see my previous blog post) in which I predicted and, eventually, saw most economy sectors under-performing up to the brink of bankruptcy (with famous „victims” such as Hertz International or LATAM Airlines), and the sheer rise to stardom of „work-from-home” sweethearts Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, it’s easy to say that the Corona pandemic took a carefully selected toll on the business world.

As previously predicted, the superstars of Q1 have been the technology behemoths, starting with the FAANG group (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet) and continuing with the fresh princes: Zoom, Slack and other collaborative tech companies.

The future

I already mentioned in my previous analysis that, even though Q1 has been very good for business for the companies above, Q2 will not be so generous. More and more people find themselves out of a job, companies close or at least reduce volume, investment budgets disappear, research and development go bust, and consumers become more and more selective with their cash.

Macroeconomic data, in the US and elsewhere, fully supports the statement above and paints a very grim picture: US unemployment close to 25% (that’s more than 40 million people having no other choice but to apply for government help), a GDP drawdown of 34% according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.

It’s a dire future they predict, and it could get nasty for most S&P members. According to a research paper from factset.com, for Q2 2020, the estimated earnings decline for the S&P500 is 43.4%.

If 43.4% is the actual decline for the quarter, it will mark the most significant year-on-year decline in earnings reported by the index since Q42008 (-69.1%).  On a per-share basis, estimated earnings for the second quarter have decreased by 35.9% since March 31^st.

*image source: factset.com

I see most, if not all, market sectors dropping in terms of revenue, earnings per share, target prices, P/E ratios. In part, due to the global exposure most of them have which brings more considerable influence, and from Covid-19 induced crisis but also because there’s no winner when everybody’s worrying for tomorrow.

In an interconnected global economy, there can no longer be a superhero company floating above all else; we’re all in the same predicament.

Murdered by numbers

Don’t let yourselves be fooled by the YTD performance of US indices:

• NASDAQ – 9814 points   ~13% YTD
• S&P – 3193 points   ~2% YTD
• DJIA – 27110 points   ~-2% YTD

*image source: Yahoo Finance

By looking at the figures above, one might think the markets are all but immune to the effects of the pandemic over the real economy. It’s my firm opinion that the fairytale in which the markets are living right now is soon to end, more precisely, with the Q2 earnings releases.

In terms of business sectors, I prefer to focus on a 4-pillar aggregate:

• Cyber-security companies
• Collaboration & conferencing products
• FAANG companies
• Automation companies

Here’s my vision over these diverse and peculiar sectors and how I see the performance on Q2 earnings:

*forecasts from money.cnn.com & TipRanks

Disclaimer:

This is not a place for the giving or receiving of financial advice, advice concerning investment decisions or tax or legal advice. This is being based on personal opinion and experience and it should not be considered professional financial investment advice.

Take into consideration that most target prices from the table above are on the optimistic side as pundits, experts, and analysts are always considering the “market sentiment” in their thought process, and the overall feeling of the market right now is one of “immunity” to the effects of the pandemic.

Delving deeper into the core of the problem, I say the economy is not reflected in the equity markets, and there’s been a division between market sentiment and market performance.

The conclusion

In times of uncertainty and crisis, people and markets alike return to the basics, which, in capital markets, boils down to coming back to the fundamentals. Caution is the word of the times, and this caution, combined with the weaker financial performances of global equities, will push the markets lower - the general decrease in prices will come.

I've always put my money where my mouth is; this is why I'm all-in shorting the markets until the end of the year. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When, in turn, it gives you a discount, you buy full-on, pedal to the metal. Because it's smarter to ride the wave and not go against the giants of the global economy: USA, I guess ? & China

Sit tight, prepare yourselves and your investment portfolios for big moves, and stay calm – these are the steps I’m taking and have proven to be the right ones in 2008 and any other crisis before and after.

You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn

“The beginning is always today,” said Mary Shelley two centuries ago

She was quite optimistic, which comes as a surprise from a leading Romantic era exponent. Of course, she was talking about the excitement of an interesting adventure, a fresh day, a brand-new start.

In the trying times of Coronavirus, I keep my right to be realistic. There’s growing talk about the post-corona era, about how everything will come back to what it once was, how society will restart and pick-up from where it was left a few months ago, how economies will put all crisis behind and rise from the ashes. I’m confident that what we’re going through right now is just the beginning of a new epoch, the epoch in which nothing will be the same anymore.

The new normal

I’ve come to this conclusion by observing behaviors around me. From the muted cry of small entrepreneurs who try to find comfort in insufficient government stimulus programs to central banks that gave their all and then some, printing money out of nothing and throwing it in the face of the virus in the hope that this, the last weapon in their arsenal, will start making things right, economies rejoice, and people enthusiastically consume once again.

The underlining note in all of this is one thing: FEAR. Manifested in different forms and with various influences and vectors, but all in all, the same feeling: pure, unadulterated fear.

Business-wise, fear makes or breaks actions and thoughts, dismisses investment plans, smashes development budgets, fires employees, cuts innovation, research, development, affects investor sentiments, turns economic tigers into tame pussycats. Mind you; this is not a presumptuous forecast; this is the reality we’re living in now. This is the new world.

The Wuhan precedent

Let’s not kid ourselves; this is not an exercise of imagination; this is what some already tried. The best example is the lockdown relaxation and economic restart measures in what was, not long ago, the epicenter of this new world: Wuhan, China.

For them, after a 76-day total lockdown, with draconic measures taken to keep them inside at all times, the April 8 announcement of travel bans being lifted came as a literal breath of fresh air.

One month later, and shops are still closed, restaurants are turned into takeaway booths, businesses generate close to zero profits, production is still in shambles, bankruptcy is the new status quo. Already, the local economy contracted by at least 40% and prospects are grim.

Regardless of state-backed stimulus programs, zero-rent programs, employee cost covers, and many more, the economy does not seem to pick up.

The once-thriving 11 million people city is still in mental lockdown. Anxiety is the name of the new game.

Employees that had the luxury of being able to work from home don’t want to return to the office. People no longer frequent gyms, restaurants, cinemas, spas, salons, arcades, shopping malls, travel agencies, beauty parlors, neither the personal nor the professional life of most Wuhanese is now what it was a few months ago.

Authorities, even despotic, autocratic ones as the Chinese are, have no idea what’s going to happen, how to prepare for it, how to tackle it, and what to do if all else fails. It’s a trial and error process for Wuhan, for China, and pretty soon, for the rest of the world.

A mixed bag of information

So far, the pros and cons list contains most, if not all, measures and steps you hear about all day long, every time you turn on your TV or web browser:

Lockdown

1. It surely works!
2. It might not, it’s too soon to tell, look at the USA, see the protestors!

Ventilators

1. Essential for life support during these trying times!
2. Actually, studies are showing they don’t make much of a difference!

Remdesivir

1. The magic drug that’s going to cure us all!
2. Trial test after trial test showed that it has no positive effects and might, in some cases, even make matters worse!

Hydroxychloroquine

1. Some guy says it cured him!
2. Intensive medical studies find no relevant connection between it and Corona evolution!

Smokers are better protected

1. Their lungs are more accustomed to harsh breathing conditions!
2. How could that be, smoking kills, it says so on the pack!

Flattening the curve is the way to go

1. Sounds smart and might work!
2. There’s no proof yet this is the way to go for acquiring mass immunization!

For each contradictory affirmation, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, pseudo-studies, reports, analysis… And with each of those, the general uncertainty about the future grows a little bit stronger.

For the average Joe and for Billion and Trillion-Dollar businesses:

• revenues and incomes plummet
• earnings are reaching new lows
• tens, if not hundreds of millions have already or are very close to losing their jobs
• productivity is sinking
• motivation becomes a scarce commodity
• people invent reasons for staying inside, in the comfort and safety of their homes
• entire market sectors close up
• the business world is transforming and all of us together with it

Until the Holy Grail, the vaccine, will be on the market, I see the anxiety described above as an ever-growing sentiment for all of us.

What does the future look like?

Covid-19 is here to stay, even the most optimistic medical scenarios don’t approximate a delivery data for the vaccine closer than 18 months.

Bracing for the second wave is easier said than done, because, in the end, in this new world, nobody knows what the future holds.

Caution is the word of the year, and it should be displayed both in a personal and a professional sense.

Not all people react the same way, and not everybody can work from home, cultures differ, lockdown measures affect each of us differently, central banks intervene in various ways in the markets, government policies that work in Wuhan might not be appropriate for Milan. We’re different, all of us, and now we find each other united by a common enemy and a common goal: survive, adapt, thrive.

Stay safe; stay healthy!

You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, entrepreneurs must overcome their condition and address not only the preservation of their own business but also the process of scaling it, tuning it to the new economic realities.

Giving society - and the economy – a part of their wealth is a necessity, not just a nice gesture or a way to get tax deductions. Private capital and its owners are one of the most effective weapons against economic decline.

The lesson of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates

In 2010, when they launched the Giving Pledge initiative, Warren Buffett, Bill, and Melinda Gates started from a simple statement related to the tens of billions they had in their accounts: no other financial additions or arrangements done to their assets would have brought extra welfare or happiness.

This is how the initiative started, which in the meantime, gathered around 200 billionaires as followers. Only last year, the total equity for the 200 contributors - including Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, or Elon Musk – reached almost $1 trillion (a thousand billion). And the total donations amounted to $500 billion.

The amount is very close to the $590 billion funding package agreed by the finance ministers of the European Union countries at the beginning of April 2020, for the COVID-19 recovery. We can see that a group of private individuals has a financial strength comparable to one of the world's leading economic federations.

But what is also interesting is how the Giving Pledge works - the only necessary conditions are:

• to donate more than half of your wealth and
• claiming it publicly

The second condition eliminates the discussion of anonymous philanthropy and encourages donors to become public advocates for the causes they fund and support. Otherwise, they have the freedom to sponsor any initiative, from medical research to art, local or global, for the common good. They meet and exchange ideas; they can unite for the same actions or take on separate projects.

Why does it work?

The lax mechanism of Giving Pledge has proven to be successful and also provided a useful lesson, demonstrating that it suits the strengths that entrepreneurs have in their charitable endeavors:

• the ability to quickly and reliably analyze a situation, transforming the analysis into concrete strategies and their immediate materialization into actionable plans, realistic goal setting, and real-time performance evaluation
• quick, personal decisions based on priorities and future steps to be taken
• the ability to put righteous choices into action, translate abstract purposes into measurable goals on a medium and short term
• efficient feedback and control mechanisms, including adaptability to changes from forecasted situations
• special negotiation skills that have the entrepreneurial prestige of the donors as a starting point, but also their remarkable business practice

By comparison, as an example of a political "drawback", in the COVID-19 crisis, US Republicans and Democrats can't come to terms regarding the terminus point for the economic stimulus package. The former would like the funds to go to small businesses, while the latter would like a cash injection for the disadvantaged social categories and the health system. 

Based on the negotiations taking place in the European Union, there is an evident opposition between the southern countries – severely affected by Coronavirus – and the northern countries, which are more interested in supporting the continental economy.

What conclusions can we draw from this?

Of course, seeing all of us equals to Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg would show a lack of common sense.

But seeing role models in famous entrepreneurs is desirable, especially since in Romania, local philanthropy, touted as both efficient and socially acclaimed until now, has been lacking so far, up to the point where the word "philanthropist" is strange or only used in literature.

From this point of view, it is useful referring to the precursors of great philanthropists of the moment – pioneers themselves – if we think of Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller. They preferred global initiatives over local ones. If Carnegie has physically built numerous institutions that he named after himself, Carnegie Hall being the best known, Rockefeller funded the solving of typical American problems, such as the education of women of color. We can take their example and act in the spirit of their philanthropic acts.

Even if our resources are scarce, let us reflect on the fact that John D. Rockefeller did his first charitable act at the age of 16, when he began his career as a humble accountant. He started with a donation equivalent to 6% of personal income and became what today we consider to be, after adding up all assets, the richest man of all time.

Steps towards the future

The entrepreneurial spirit is – by its nature – a gregarious one, that not only deals with the individual good but pursues, through economic movements, a greater good, more significant than the sum of its components. I believe that it is the moral duty of every entrepreneur worth his salt to return some of the benefits he enjoys back to the society that mediated the attraction of those benefits in the first place.

Philanthropy, through its very definition, is friendship or love for the people. What better time to express this friendship than in an economic crisis?

You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn

To say that we are facing an unusual situation would undermine the magnitude of the phenomenon that conquered every corner of the planet.

Economic crises have happened before and will happen again, but it is for the first time in the last hundred years that the enemy is invisible and affects the global economy as a whole – without discriminating between business sectors, levels of economic-social development, or geographical positioning.

We are facing fear, anxiety, panic, and, like in any extreme situation, the very essence of our being is put to the test: fight or flight? We can relate to this axiom on a personal level, where each of us manages their stress responses as good as they can, and also on a business level, where the actions of the companies are modeled by the spirit of the entrepreneur behind them. 

I’m fully confident that survival and well-being are reserved not only for the most prepared but also for the most adaptable individual.

Current state of affairs

In just three weeks, no less than 16 million Americans have filed for unemployment, according to the New York Times. The signal is clear for entrepreneurs around the world, even if not all countries provide the necessary statistics: the economic crisis is here for sure, with decline estimates varying from a few percentage points to as much as 15-20%, according to expert estimates.

Based on reports of newly registered unemployment claims in the US, some pundits have been anxiously stating that the $2 trillion (thousands of billions) state aid measures announced by Donald Trump will not have the expected effect. History will show us who’s right and who’s wrong.But, as a starting point, this incentive package has provided a period of relative stability for the stock exchanges, and in some cases, even a slight recovery for indices.

The bailout package devised by the FED (and most governments/central banks of the world) will not help the economy stay afloat forever. Fortunately, this is not the intended response. Its purpose is to encourage individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses to wake up from their slumber and fight for survival. Without any supportive reactions from the private sector, it won’t matter how much money the central banks print; the economy will still collapse eventually.

That is why it is absolutely essential that the economy – which is not an entity with a volatile form, but structured on businesses of all levels – will realize that the only desired direction is upwards. 

Action plan

Ever since I took my first steps in entrepreneurship, I focused on building a healthy, sustainable, anabolic type of business that can be developed and scaled, regardless of how the wind of change blows – nationally, regionally, and globally.

A critical factor in this philosophy was the “work-from-home concept", which, until a few weeks ago, was only seen as a "treat" reserved for the select few. Well, for the companies in my group, the employee activity carries on as usual, I’m even noticing an increase in productivity – with 99% of my staff working from home for over a month!

As for any top-performance analysis, the structure behind is much more important than the conclusion: I’m here now because I emphasized from the start significant investments in what I believe is the backbone of a fintech business: the IT department. Only thanks to an IT department that works flawlessly we’re able to talk about digitalization, digital transformation, cloud-businesses, increased autonomy, and increased immune response to any economic storm that may come our way. 

What I did

It is not my intention to deliver a crisis-response manual or to make an exhaustive list; I just want to detail some of the decisions I already took or will be taking in the following period:

1. Specific budgeting
No containing measure or reaction in this world, no matter how revolutionary and daring, will succeed unless it’s supported by money. Cash flow is king! Analyzing, sorting, and transforming the fixed and floating cash-flows are essential processes in times of crisis.

2. Infrastructure
I mentioned earlier that the IT department is the backbone of my business. I’ve set this mindset since 2018, a build-up year, and I enforced everything in 2019, not in anticipation of a crisis (which actually happened), but because this is the ideal flow for my business. 

Internal communication, advanced reporting services, tracking specific KPIs, analyzing business data, building a complete ecosystem that includes the entire business, cloud services, business intelligence, and the list can go on. All of these are just cogwheels which work in sync only when well-oiled by a cohesive and sound IT department. Infrastructure is key during this period of crisis. ?

3. Empowering
Key people now have the chance to benefit from all this and gain even more power and influence in my organization, when face-to-face communication is no longer an option. I’ve always been humble enough to surround myself with people who challenge me, people with a strong personality, and decision-making power - now is their time to shine and prove to me, once again, that the power of my business is in their hands.

4. Flows and procedures
Setting goals and pursuing them is no longer a novelty for any business of high standards. I have implemented a fixed schedule for evaluation, preparation, and goal-setting meetings that can be easily tracked. Every Monday, I surround myself (virtually, for now) with my top management to prepare and start-off the week, and each Friday finds us in a video session to conclude and evaluate the past five days of activity.

5. Reporting
Thanks to the IT systems mentioned before, it’s elementary for me to track the group's reporting activity, starting from macro to micro objectives – where the situation requires it.

6. Financial motivation
I have built a meritocratic culture around me; with one hand, I reward those who perform well, and with the other, I track, identify, and analyze the environments and the people who aren’t at their best yet. I believe in the people around me, which is why I invest the time and resources needed to listen and help those who need a boost – experience has shown me that some diamonds need to be polished more before they start shining.

7. Preparing the return to the office
In small but firm steps, our activity will be returning to normal. I have invested, and I’ll still be investing in the safety of my colleagues: I’ve acquired medical and protective equipment (masks, gloves, sanitizers...), we’re prepared to install a disinfection tunnel, all in order to be able to gradually start resuming our activity. I forecast that in a few months – although nothing will be the same in the post-Coronavirus era – the activity of my group will be resumed.

Conclusion 

A crisis is an opportunity for reflection, development, and adaptation. There are still many things to improve; there are threats that have not yet made their presence felt, but, based on the above organizational structure, I am fully confident that the Coronavirus crisis era will be a huge opportunity for Key Way Group and myself. We have the right tools and attitude to take this chance and use it to evolve and progress!

You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn