Name: EY executive shares insights for CEOs during COVID-19 crisis
Uploaded: 2020-04-02
Duration: 7 min 5 s
Description: Kelly Grier describes her recent virtual roundtable with over 15,000 attendees.

[ MUSIC ] Kelly, thank you so much for joining us. I'd like to begin by talking with you about the virtual roundtable which you pulled together with 75 CEOs recently to talk about the impact of coronavirus on their businesses and how they're managing through it. What was the most common theme that kept coming up? What's their biggest worry? Thank you, Susie, the top concern of the CEOs really is their people. So it starts there and repeatedly we heard that throughout the conversation. Most of the focus ultimately would map back to how they're protecting and caring for their people during these extraordinary periods of time. That having been said there's a significant amount of focus as well on liquidity and just ensuring that their organisations have sufficient liquidity to weather the storm. And do they feel that they are getting enough money from the government from that CARES Act, that $ 2 trillion fiscal stimulus program so that they can keep their operations going? The discussion that we had on Friday actually preceded the Act having been formally approved and signed in to law. So the conversation was much more generally about liquidity as opposed to what was going to be. Enabled by the cares act. But today you had a much broader discussion with I think you told me 15, 000 C suite executives to talk specifically about this $ 2 trillion stimulus package. What was the feedback? Did most of the people feel like they're gonna be okay, they're getting enough money from the government or do they need more It's a great question. It was actually oversubscribed. So we we had well over 15, 000 executives join, join the session. And certainly we feel that a lot of questions from the group. The Act itself has is just sweeping in the breadth of its offerings and there's there's a lot of different elements to it from a job protections perspective as well as tax provision as well as liquidity. Enablement and so really, across that whole spectrum of different dimensions of the Act, there are many, many questions. I think it's very early in terms of really understanding what individual companies will benefit will benefit from different provisions within the act. And everybody's working feverishly to get their arms around that Given the restraints that every CEO and company is going through, what are you telling them to do? Can you sum it up to like one most critical piece of advice of what they should be doing so that they can keep their businesses intact? Yeah, absolutely. I think first of all. Foremost, you've got to be able to scenario plan what may come and start to build specific action plans around those scenarios. It's not clear as to how long this this period of disruption from a business perspective is going to last is it Is it 30 days, Is it 60 days, Is it you know, is it 12 months and depending on your outlook and those various scenarios, you obviously have a very different plan that you have to be executing against. So that's probably the most important thing is to develop scenario plans. That allow you to take specific action. Depending on how, you see, the scenarios playing out at certain stages, it may be obvious that this is going to carry on longer certain stages. Whether we're talking about a V or a U or an L recovery may become clearer, and companies just need to have their action plan and the specific levers associated with those different scenarios, ready to go. I know that talking about a company's dividend payout is kind of a sacrosanct sort of thing. But in times like this, oftentimes, companies have to suspend or cut the dividend. What is your view on that and did that topic come up? The number of focus for the CEOs in the discussion on Friday, was about Capital preservation and doing what they need to do in order to manage through the extended down turn and the disruption to their business. So that was the single focus above and beyond any other aspect of the capital allocation strategy including the dividend policy. They're very singularly focused on working capital management, and cash and liquidity preservation right now. Well meanwhile the April bills are going to start coming in, and CEOs are going to have to decide which bills have to be paid and which ones that they can put off. What are your thoughts on what they should do, how do you decide what to pay and what not to pay? Well, I think every every relationship and every service associated with those relationships is unique and I think companies are having one on one discussions with their major service providers, and the companies and organizations that they rely on for their business. And really negotiating those on a one on a one by one basis. So Kelly, how are you picturing the new normal? As I said, when we get to the other side of this whole healthcare crisis, you know how our business is gonna look or be different, whether it's for the business itself for the customers for the employees, how do you see? I think that everybody has very quickly had to adapt to this work from home or remote working phenomenon in a way that was really unexpected and and so I think a lot of a lot of organisations. At a necessity really adapted very quickly and are finding a way to be productive, but with a more of a remote and a virtual workforce. And I think that is probably something that will be sustained over a longer period of time when we do come at the other end, I think affording people more flexibility And still allowing for being highly productive. From a work force perspective I think it's a win win, that I think a lot of companies will look to establish some provisions that are more permanent in nature in that regard. Where does technology fit in all this? I mean, certainly the fact that we can do this virtual interview and you know, cloud sharing and there's so many technology tools that we have that allow us to work from home. Do you see any kind of technology push that companies are definitely going to go for on the other side Yeah. Technology has been absolutely fundamental. Certainly to our business and our ability to continue to be very productive. It's been wonderful the response, really, from the tech sector, in terms of Offering more and more tools and really allowing greater access to those tools particularly for small and medium businesses, and for education and other civic needs and in just community efforts to keep the world connected during a period where everybody's sheltering at home and And I think that that will continue to be the case. Again, the demand I think will only grow for these types of tools and resources. And I think the use is only gonna continue to grow. So technology has been fundamental, but I think that what we've What we really hit is an inflection point that will likely create permanent change with technology enablement at the at the core of that. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Kelly Grier describes her recent virtual roundtable with over 15,000 attendees.

EY executive shares insights for CEOs during COVID-19 crisis

Leadership

EY's Kelly Grier shares takeaways from a virtual roundtable.