Sandra Felsenstein
Head of the DINKA consultancy

A deep review
A crisis with falling sales and price increases, like the 2018, requires a thorough review of spending, trying to be more efficient behind the scenes.
Specifically, this means avoiding superfluous expenses that do not generate perceptible added value for the client., optimize existing resources and address improvements to the organization and its processes.
But you have to be careful, for example, when defining what items are included under the heading of "superfluous expenses". Low-cost advertising is not and can be a very significant advantage.
On the pricing policy side, my suggestion is to adjust them cautiously.. Yes OK, in despair, entrepreneurs often try to recover profitability by punishing prices, that can play against, resulting in a further drop in sales. I think that energy should be focused on selling better instead of selling more. This is, pay more attention to the mix of products in relation to the profitability that each one contributes to the company.

The opinion of the specialists
Anabella Cornejo, director of the consulting firm Pymehelp of Villa María, Córdoba, ensures that in the face of the sales crisis with pressure on prices, it is key to take a moment to think and investigate before making the wrong decisions. I propose to clients that they ask themselves if the drop in sales is strictly due to the crisis, or are there other reasons. What happens to your competition, for example?: it's the same, worse or better? Once an answer is reached, consider what should change so that customers prefer him and not the competition.”
Sandra Felsenstein, owner of the Dinka consultancy, says that first of all it is important to remember that crises are an opportunity to improve. “If it was not possible to be more efficient in good times, the crisis drives us to be, because it must be taken into account that it is during crises when the markets make non-competitive companies disappear.”, dice. "Therefore, in the face of falling sales, it is necessary to rethink the commercial strategy, making sustainable decisions, smart, that do not have negative repercussions in the medium term”, recommends.
Oscar Navos, rector of the Argentine School of Business University Institute (EAN) also links the crisis with being more efficient: suggests 'stabilizing the ship'. Recommends defining a period of caution in the execution of expenses, without affecting the quality of service and staffing, then apply the concept of a 'zero base' budget that requires informing each sector or area of ​​the company of how much money will be available in the period in question.” These are circumstances that put the leadership of the manager or owner of the company to the test,” he says.. Different scenarios and their possible consequences and the responses that will be generated by the company must be analyzed”.
Patrick Garcia de Leo, director of the digital marketing agency Known Online, He says that when the company has financial backing, it is not a bad decision to focus on winning the market shares that the competition loses or cannot capture.. But when resources are scarce, should seek to reduce production costs and explore alternatives. “Electronic commerce can be operated 100% by third parties, becoming an alternative source of income. In parallel, It allows us to be a financial lever with providers of demand generation and product delivery,” he says.. Cornejo says that there are businessmen who show resistance to the development of a website. “We show them success stories in times of crisis. We are talking about Villa María EDUCA, a series of education professionals who came together to teach short-term courses, and that they discovered that the interested parties continue to appear in times of crisis with the sole fact of having published the courses in advance.