Behind the first restructuring steps announced in retail are management consultants. The most powerful Romanian entrepreneurs admit for the first time that they are unable to turn their businesses around by themselves and thus are paying millions of euros to outside consultants.
After twenty years during which they created, run and developed businesses that exceeded 100-200 million euros in turnover each, entrepreneurs such as Dan Ostahie (Altex), Ioan Ciolan (Ambient Sibiu), Florin Panea (Leonardo) and the Penescu brothers (Pic) are now signing consultancy deals and paying lots of money to make sure the end of the crisis will find them on the same positions on the markets they operate on.
"There’s very little room for mistakes now." This is how Codrut Pascu, managing partner of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants firm explains the reason why local entrepreneurs, owners of businesses worth more than 100 million euros currently make up most of the clients of management advisory firms. Altex and Ambient are among the companies carrying out restructuring projects with Roland Berger’s help.
The number of Roland Berger projects conducted in companies held by local investors increased by 20% in the first half compared with the same time of 2008, according to the data provided by Pascu. Local companies currently account for approximately 30% of the total number of clients of Roland Berger on the Romanian market, a higher percentage than last year.
Behind major streamlining projects announced in retail thus far are teams of three to six people working for management consultancy firms or audit firms, which visit their clients almost every day in order to find a solution to turn the business around together with the companies’ managers.
"I don’t think one can carry out a streamlining project in a company with less than 0.5 million euros," Codrut Pascu says.
Some restructuring operations cost companies as much as millions of euros for the services of outside consultants, according to information on the market.
Local entrepreneurs are now more open to working with outside consultants because local businesses turned out to be more vulnerable during the crisis than the businesses developed by multinationals, says Robert Maxim, managing partner of Ensight Management Consulting.
"One should not ignore the branding and positioning factors, either. Contextual success is fragile now and in the absence of a powerful brand and of a correct positioning on the market, a business may turn out to be very vulnerable," Ensight’s manager says.
"The market has gone up until now, management mistakes were easy to cover, they did not produce short-term effects," Codrut Pascu in turn says.
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