Swiss CFOs less pessimistic in global comparison due to Covid-19
A survey by PwC shows how CFOs around the world plan to respond to COVID-19 - and what impact they expect it to have. Swiss CFOs are significantly less pessimistic than their global colleagues. However, they also fear liquidity bottlenecks and negative operating results.
As part of a global initiative, PwC Switzerland is tracking the response of CFOs to the COVID-19 outbreak by conducting a bi-weekly survey with CFOs of the largest Swiss companies across a range of industries. This survey was conducted during the week of March 23 and is based on responses from CFOs of large, small and medium-sized Swiss companies.
Great concern from Swiss CFOs
Although COVID-19 has not yet peaked, three-quarters of respondents in Switzerland say the outbreak has potential for significant impact on their business. Only a minority of respondents perceive the impact of the pandemic as limited to certain regions of their company or as an isolated challenge without a major impact on the business. A significant 75 percent of Swiss CFOs expect the impact of COVID-19 to negatively affect their revenues and/or profits. Fifteen percent of respondents say they have difficulty assessing the impact of COVID-19 on revenues. This is due to new information and findings on COVID-19 being released on a daily basis.
Cost containment and investment freezes
The main measures already taken by Swiss companies in response to COVID-19 were cited as cost containment measures, postponement or cancellation of planned investments, and changes to financing plans.
In response to the question concerning the outlook for April, CFOs in Switzerland cited staff changes due to low demand (temporary leave) and the separation of employees (redundancies) as the most likely negative events. As companies focus on protecting their liquidity, they are currently postponing various types of investments, with information technology, operations, labor and facilities being the most frequently cited. With the full economic impact of COVID-19 still difficult to gauge, only 20 percent of companies are considering changes to their supply chain and have only implemented short-term measures. In the long term, companies are expected to increasingly readjust their supply chain.
Normalization in less than one month
Also asked was the "cardinal question": How long would it take to recover if the outbreak ended immediately? Here, too, Swiss CFOs are significantly more optimistic than their global counterparts: 65 percent say that their business would return to normal in less than a month, and a further 25 percent assume a period of one to three months. Global opinions are somewhat more pessimistic - the absolute majority believe that their business would return to normal in one to three months.
Source: PwC
