{"id":23521,"date":"2020-04-03T19:49:06","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T16:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/?p=23521"},"modified":"2020-04-06T01:37:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T22:37:41","slug":"effects-crisis-business-sharing-online-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/effects-crisis-business-sharing-online-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Effects of the Crisis: What the Business is Sharing During our Online Meetings\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23418 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"396\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-146x146.jpg 146w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-75x75.jpg 75w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-85x85.jpg 85w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Covid-Business-Sofia-80x80.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px\" \/>Over the last two weeks, together with the team of Innovative Sofia and the direct participation of the Deputy Mayor <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Digitalization, Vladimir Danailov, we organized online meetings with a number of industry associations in Sofia. We <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">e-met <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with the Bulgarian Startup Association (BESCO), the Association for Innovation, Business Excellence, Services and Technology (AIBEST), the Bulgarian Association of Software Companies (<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BASSCOM<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), the Bulgarian Employers&#8217; Association Innovative Technologies (BRAIT), the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Health and Life Sciences Cluster<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the AI Cluster Bulgaria, the Digital Health and Innovation Cluster Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Convention Bureau, the Association of Commercial Building Owners in Bulgaria and others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We discussed the potential threats and opportunities for the local economy, the opportunities for business-to-city collaboration during and after COVID-19, as well as specific possible measures (at municipal and national level) to help rebuild the business ecosystem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The meetings continue and we will prepare a summary analysis <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">proposals. Here are some of the visible threats and possible solutions that the business has shared so far.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The situation:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ICT sector expects losses from corporate clients both abroad and in Bulgaria, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">because of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the economic crisis.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The impact on foreign enterprises in aviation, automotive and other high-tech industries has a direct negative effect on suppliers, subcontractors and co-innovation partners in Sofia.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Companies in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">development phase are expected to freeze their investment plans, which will have a negative impact not only on the IT industry in Sofia, but also on the startup environment, which could lead to layoffs of staff in the most affected companies and t<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he shrinking of<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the number of employees in the sector by 30% -50%<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is even greater risk for product companies due to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the current lack of<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> investment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is possible that global companies might decide to close their operations in Sofia .<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The congress and event sector, which attracts about 52% of tourists in Sofia, currently brings virtually zero revenues because of the postponement and cancellation of events. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">COVID-19 is expected to have a huge negative effect on the workforce in the sector, while the sector also supports a number of subcontractors <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(on average, 200-300 companies are involved in the organisation of major forums)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">would also <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">experience <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">losses along the chain.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New construction is expected to be put on hold this year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reduced or no revenue is generated by business premises because of closed facilities <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and offices. Within lease of new premises, there are expectations for an outflow of IT companies, while the already leased ones could be freed, and this is precisely the sector which maintains the most stable share in office space transactions.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Possible measures proposed by the business:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interest-free loans for companies with no redundancies and more preferential terms for those who hire new staff.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No cancellations of already awarded funding or contracts under operational programs in order to continue investment in innovative projects.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the healthcare sector, funds to the contractual partners could be paid a few months in advance and then deducted in stages.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Development of a local action plan for the event industry that will play a key role in positioning the city as a competitive location and restoring business momentum after the crisis.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sofia-based companies dealing with big data, business intelligence, artificial intelligence, telemedicine, cybersecurity, automation and robotics of business processes, clinical trials and more, should be engaged in a working group to develop a t<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hree- or five-year plan <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to implement working digital models for the healthcare sector. This will help Sofia to become one of the first innovative, bold cities in which processes in the healthcare sector are <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">digitized<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Thus, the city will attract experts and companies from abroad and the working models will be an example for other Bulgarian cities, while Sofia will be able to position itself as one of the most innovative cities in Europe.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Temporarily exemption of property owners from taxes or <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reduced <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">taxes and fees.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Making the city administration a conduit of business ideas at the state level and a facilitator of messages and ideas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reviewing the regulatory framework for a faster implementation of e-government and e-services at national level. Other municipalities in Bulgaria can copy the active approach of Sofia Municipality on digitalization of administrative services and the urban environment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Using the capacity of the local technology sector for the benefit of the state, the city and the society.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During our talks, the organisations proactively offered direct assistance for the automation of processes in social services, telemedicine products, infrastructure and technical support of communication in the conditions of social distancing, remote monitoring of patients, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deputy Mayor Vladimir Danailov and the teams of<a href=\"http:\/\/innovativesofia.bg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Innovative Sofia<\/a> and Invest Sofia are thankful to all participants and companies for their clearly stated readiness to provide free resources and ready-made solutions for the benefit of the citizens and the economy of Sofia.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Over the last two weeks, together with the team of Innovative Sofia and the direct participation of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":23419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}