This is the seventh interview that we have received for our initiative devoted to “Covid-19” emergency.
Fabrizio Azzimonti
Owner, Ormamacchine (Torre Boldone, Bergamo)
www.ormamacchine.it
- How are you reacting to this emergency?
“I could never imagine I would have talked about, and even less experienced, a situation that can only be described with one word: apocalypse. We are all disrupted by this pandemic that has gradually swept the whole world, a sneaky, invisible and devastating enemy. Many people, especially the elder and weaker ones, but not only, have been struck and passed away, and those who had to suffer such pain did not even have the possibility to stay close to their loved ones during the last moments of their life”.
- What do you think is changing or will change radically?
“As to business, of course, we have complied with the directives issued by the authorities to contain the epidemic, progressively closing down all economic activities. The damage to the economy and image of our companies will be devastating, in the short term because we cannot fulfill the existing orders, and in the long term because there will be no new orders.
This crisis is much worse than September 11 or Lehman Brothers: when we are allowed to restart production, we will be able to issue invoices for pending orders (but not all of them), but in the short term, two to three months, the impact will be much harder”.
- What should the authorities and all of us do?
“As a business owner, I will do all I can to ensure business continuity, deploying all resources and efforts, but we definitely need “external support”. Besides temporary layoff, all possible measures should be adopted to offer economic relief to companies, including fiscal relief, delayed payments, instalments. It’s not realistic to think that companies, especially small and medium ones, can bear the weight of these costs, even if delayed. I really hope that our industry representatives will transfer this message to the government and that we get tangible and immediate help. As to my own company, with these events we have definitely realized that we must increase our digital transformation efforts and support marketing, communications, service, e-commerce and smart working practices. We are Italians, from Bergamo, and we are businesspeople, so we never give up and I am sure we will make it!”.
“Take my words as a personal outburst, a straight-off speech in a period when operating urgencies and thoughts prevent me from thinking rationally about the actions to be taken. In our region, so many people have died that I cannot even remember how many messages of condolence I have sent, and each time I feel a lump in my throat and my eyes fill with tears…”.
