Ernst & Young: The rules of the game have permanently changed

Managers, surprised by the severity and speed of the downturn

88% of global companies say their operating model has been altered by recession, survey found.

The comparisons with a similar study in January also reveal that while the white heat of the crisis has passed, the majority of companies are still focused on survival although there is a significant minority who are looking to take advantage of the situation to pursue new opportunities.

Opportunities in adversity: accelerating the change, finds nearly half of those surveyed (43%) said that their operating model had been permanently altered by the events of the last 18 months. A further 45% said there had been a temporary impact.

56% of the executives said that their risk management processes had been permanently altered, 33% temporarily. For 45% the regulatory framework for business had also fundamentally changed.

Other alterations to their business model – price sensitivity, profitability, competitive sensitivity and economic stability were viewed by respondents as more temporary, although a significant minority – above 20% in each case – viewed the changes here as permanent as well.

“Not only does this research show the permanent impact of the change that has taken place in the last 12 months it also demonstrates how rapid that change has been and how very few people saw this coming. More than three quarters of the executives we surveyed were surprised by both the severity and speed of the downturn”, John Murphy, Global Vice-Chair Markets, Ernst & Young said.

It is still really tough out there

Ernst & Young carried out a similar study five months ago. The corporates surveyed in the respective report, and the thousands of companies the company has discussed the research with since, are still seeing huge competition on price.

Companies are still seeing significant numbers of bankruptcies and competitors withdrawing from their sector, but there was also an increase in those organizations reporting new entrants in their sector.

The overall mood is still sombre. Although 64% of executives said they had been able to make cost reductions, 31% said they had improved revenues and more than a third said the environment was more positive in terms of making strategic acquisitions.

A majority of executives had seen deterioration in revenues (58%) and profitability (56%). Only 20% had seen an improvement in investor confidence, and a similar low number saw any improvement in accessing affordable capital or credit.

Murphy adds, “Given the pressures that these corporates are under, it is remarkable that a slim majority had seen their business either improve or stay static over the past 12 months. The management challenge over the coming year will be to act even more quickly and decisively.”

What changed in the meantime?

A slight shift in emphasis from the responses from January gives some credence to the thinking that the worst ravages of the recession are behind us. At the time of the last study, 82% said the focus of their business was on restructuring their business to deal with the recession and 74% were looking merely at survival of the present operations.

Those figures have now declined to 74% and 65% - still remarkably high - but in conjunction with the fact that the proportion of companies who said that they were “taking advantage of the recession to pursue new market operations” had increased from 59% to 69% - suggest there are some more companies out there bargain basement hunting.

“Many assets are at much lower prices than two years ago, which will bring opportunistic buyers to the table. The number of executives in our survey intending to carry out strategic acquisitions in new areas of business was up 7% on January to nearly a quarter. Given the continued relative scarcity of cash, we anticipate more creative deal structures and alternative financing arrangements,” Pip McCrostie, Global Vice-Chair, Transaction Advisory Services, said.

Cash is actually tighter

Back in January over a quarter of executives said cash was not an issue. That proportion has slipped to 18%. Respondents also highlighted an increase in communications to lenders and rating agencies. There was however less talk of companies disposing of assets purely to raise cash.

Instead more companies were focusing on renegotiating their debt covenants. Three quarters of respondents said their company had undergone a top down review of working capital management and cash flows.

Over the last year, 86% of executives said they had accelerated cost reduction programs, 52% had speeded up their restructuring plans and 38% had pushed the button on a “significant employee reduction program”.

When asked about their key drivers in the short term there was increased scrutiny on profitability (73%), pricing strategy (55%) and their relationship with customers (52%). Internally it was no surprise that 38% had seen more investment in risk.

Opportunities from a tax perspective. What�s next in the longer term?

While cash management is always important, the liquidity crisis has really intensified the pressure on cash flow. Yet, despite the fact that tax rates as one of the biggest items on the income statement, many companies have not fully explored the full range of cash-tax management strategies available to them.

“Tax provides a wide variety of strategies for virtually any type of company to preserve, acquire or maximize cash to support overall business goals. Plus, with new fiscal stimulus-driven tax measures being introduced by governments around the world, a wide range of new opportunities are emerging nearly every day," said Mark Weinberger Global Vice-Chair Tax Ernst & Young.

While these planning strategies and stimulus programs can yield very generous benefits, they often feature narrowly defined eligibility periods. As such, the ability to evaluate and act quickly is a critical key to success.

In terms of looking post-recession, executives were pretty evenly split between expanding into new geographies, increased use of strategic alliances, acquisitions, and speed to market and divesting non-core business.

Norman Lonergan, Global Vice-Chair Advisory comments, “In our earlier report we identified that, contrary to expectations, the crisis had actually accelerated reshaping trends. This has continued and we are now seeing even more companies with active plans to fundamentally change their business.”

Are we past the worst?

There was a range of views from our respondents with a quarter saying the worst was now behind us and 42% saying that some signs of life in the global economy are evident or will be by the end of the year but a strong minority of 21% saw no recovery before the second half of 2010 at the earliest.

There are some sectors that are more optimistic than others – Telecoms, Power, Oil & Gas in particular - but others see a longer downturn, notably Asset Management and Real Estate and Construction. Respondents in Europe were more negative than in Asia or the Americas.

For this study, the Economist intelligence Unit surveyed 569 C-suite and board level executives. Respondents were drawn from across the world and across industry sectors. Over half the executives polled worked for companies with annual global revenue in excess of 1 billion US dollars. The research was carried out in June 2009.