The Importance of Deciding… in a Decisive Way

As always around this time, the year that has just ended is subject to evaluations in order to set the budgets and operating strategies for the new year in the most likely and coherent way. Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to make realistic forecasts, owing to the numerous exogenous and, therefore, uncontrollable factors.

What is now evident is the paradigm shift, which makes it almost more important to be structured to respond quickly and flexibly to any unforeseen changes in the market, compared to having a solid organization consistent with the objectives and strategies of a medium to long term plan, a mandatory horizon for an effective strategy. This consideration leads me to reflect on what should be the attitude of those who are in a position to inspire confidence and provide reliable prospects for the economic policy of the country, so that the various players, primarily companies, are provided with solid bases to face the unpredictability of external factors.

As the president of Confindustria said, referring to the government’s economic manoeuvre: “The point is not so much the overruns that the government has decided” and the consequent “negotiations underway with the EU commission. The question is whether these resources are used for growth or not or, using different words, how the economic manoeuvre will impact on real economy”. In my opinion, the current climate of perplexity and uncertainty that is spreading through businesses and consumers, as a result of the confused picture of announcements and denials by the government on economic policy issues, is causing the turnaround of the indicators of the future prospects of our country. On a psychological level, this destabilizes the behaviour of investors, companies and, last but not least, consumers themselves.

According to the October report of the Centro Studi di Confindustria “Trends of Italian Economy and Economic Policy Scenarios”, the estimated that GDP growth will be “slowing down by 1.1% in 2018 and by 0.9% in 2019 compared to 1.6% recorded in 2017”. This is partially due to uncertainty, for sure, but it is also true that we can do something about it. I believe that being aware of one’s future leads to optimizing one’s strategies. A credible, thought-of decision making process is certainly better than remaining in an indefinite limbo of a thousand hypotheses that may lead companies to adopt precautionary measures and that, ultimately, may result in stagnation. If I were to summarise this concept, I would say that it is necessary “ to decide in order to be able to decide… in a decisive way”.