Cefin Romania, the automotive unit of Italy's Cefin holding and an Iveco certified dealer, expects turnover to go down by 18-20% from last year, when the company reported a 300m-euro figure.
"We estimate an 18-20% lower turnover this year. Unfortunately, though, we'll have to readjust, reanalyse and change our strategy each quarter since, in the current conditions, we can no longer estimate anything on the long term, but only on the short and medium one," says Daniel Marin, HR manager of Cefin Romania, a company employing almost 700 people, with 300m-euro turnover last year.
Marin adds, though, that in a downbeat scenario, the company's turnover may drop by as much as 30%.
The turnover decline comes amid the falling demand, which has also led to a 10% headcount cut. Thus, around 100 people have left the company since last year. Most of them have decided to leave, while the rest had to leave as a series of investments outside Bucharest were frozen.
Marin explains that investments will be resumed to the extent to which things go back to normal. He also says technical unemployment may be an alternative, with the company likely to consider this solution should it be forced to give up part of its personnel.
However, the company plans to hire new people, since, though some investments were given up, other will be continued. Thus, the operations at the Deva branch will be moved to a new office and the company also plans to build new offices in Galati.
While at present sales people are easier to find, service personnel, namely engineers and mechanics, are still hard to recruit. This is also one of the reasons why restructuring is among the last solutions the company has in mind to overcome the crisis because it has placed a great emphasis on employee training investments so far.
The automotive unit of Cefin group includes several firms selling new and used Iveco utility vehicles, providing truck servicing, selling tyres and vehicle parts. According to the Finance Ministry data, Cefin Romania, the biggest firm part of the automotive unit, in 2007 reached 177m-euro turnover.
Cefin Holding started its Romanian activities in 1995 as an Iveco certified dealer in Bucharest. At present, Cefin operates along three major lines: commercial vehicles, production and real estate.
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