Lack of action causes unnecessary casualties
Just as much as Trump has a hard time facing the reality that he lost the elections to president-elect Joe Biden so does the leisure, tourism and hospitality sector in the Netherlands.
Successfully plan for the long-term future
All the energy seems to be focused on dealing with the current situation. We are all frantically looking for bandages to stop the immediate bleeding. The support from the government is broadly embraced and applauded. The negative effect of the current generic approach is that we are helping everyone. It is time to make the near future a part of the debate. We need to design a triage type of process to separate the potentially vital organisations from the ones that have no chance to survive this shock to the system.
Banks leading the way
The ECB had made an announcement that they will require banks to have more reserves available to deal with the tsunami of bankruptcies. During the first lock-down the banks gave entrepreneurs all over the board access to relief by allowing interest payments and redemption payments to be delayed. Now with the second lock-down they have stated that they will start looking at every individual case. The lens that they will apply is going to focus on the future capacity of the organisation to generate enough cash to support a future credit relationship. That cash flow has to come out of the operational profit for years to come. They discard history and solvency of an organization, but just clinically look at the merits of each case.
Leadership needed
The responsible bodies in the current dialogue need to prepare their members for this future. They have to show leadership and allow for difficult but needed measures to be taken if they are not supported by all members. Until now we have hardly seen any bankruptcies, but a tsunami is coming. It is not only unwise to not prepare, it is even unethical. Debts will accumulate without a real perspective.