Endeavor Business Media, one of the largest business-to-business media companies in the United States, with print properties, web platforms and trade events spanning five key business sectors including Industrial, City Services/Healthcare, Transportation, Design Engineering/Buildings/Energy and Technology, has just released a survey deployed over a two-week period to its majority of brands entitled, "Market Pulse: COVID-19 Recovery Study."
The survey had 2,502 total responses, the majority of which were C-level executive managers and engineering/R&D/Design & Technical managers. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents work in companies with annual revenues over $1 million; while 15% work in companies with annual revenues over $500 million. Nearly 81% of respondents work in the United States; primarily California, Florida., Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Impact on Business Operations
What the survey indicates is an alarming impact on business operations, budget concerns and uncertainty about short and long-term business prospects. Nearly 39% of executive respondents said their business activity has decreased since “stay-at-home” mandates went into effect. Over 37% said they were currently working as normal in the field or office, while another 41% are working from home either part- or full-time.
When asked what type of cost reductions their companies would be making in 2020, nearly 50% have experienced overall budget reductions as a result of COVID-19, as new equipment purchases (down 38%) and advertising/marketing budgets (down 27%) have undergone the largest reductions in spending. Reductions in parts and maintenance expenses (down 21%) and the suspension of contract services (21%) were also COVID-19 budget victims.
In a response that is not surprising to many business continuity planners and risk experts, less than 30% of these organizations had a business continuity plan in place and those that did admit they would be updating it as needed in 2020. However, nearly 20% did not have a plan and were not currently working on creating one. When asked what type of operational changes their organizations would be making as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 63% said they were implementing heightened safety/sanitation procedures in their workplace and another 40% said they were changing their production environment for social distancing.
The Business Outlook
From a business perspective, while optimism seemed to abound with nearly 68% of the executives saying they were optimistic about the next six months as their businesses start to reopen or show some recovery, only 34% said they feel their industry would recover in the first half of 2021; another 21% anticipated recovery in the second half of 2021. Almost 12% of executives had a less positive outlook, stating that recovery for them would not happen until 2022 or later, or perhaps never at all.
When asked which statements best represented their predictions for the post-COVID business for their company, nearly 29% said returning to business-as-usual for their companies could take at least one year after precautionary guidelines were lifted, while 20% said business-as-usual would never fully return. As for the executives’ outlook for business in general, almost 36% said returning to business-as-usual, in general, could take at least one year after precautionary guidelines were lifted, while 26% said business-as-usual would never fully return.
The news was not good for the travel and event sides of the house. Over 61% said they were not planning on traveling for work in the next six months. However, nearly 90% said they would attend a virtual event or digital programming in lieu of traveling.
The Security Industry Perspective
In a recent survey conducted by Security Technology Executive magazine, security end-users were asked if they anticipate a significant impact on their overall capital expenditures related to physical security in the next 12 months as a result of COVID-19.
Forty-two percent of the security executives predicted their spending to be flat, while 32% figured spending to decrease and only 26% saw an increase in capital expenditures.
The same question was asked to IT managers and CISOs related to significant impact on overall capital expenditures related to cybersecurity in the next 12 months as a result of COVID-19 and 52% said their spending would be flat, which was surprising considering the shift to an at-home workforce. Only 23% looked to increase their cybersecurity budgets.
