Will it be only the mask to save the world of the post-pandemic?
The post of the lawyer Angela Lupo
All the data on the fall in GDP (with a small recovery in the August period) for the trade and fashion sector, but also for the entire catering chain are under the eyes of all the data. These negative and tragic data, however, cannot be related to elements provided, in previous years, in which there was no pandemic problem. A year ago, Italy had not emerged from a long period of lockdown, there had been no production stoppages, no shops, restaurants and bars closed.
It would be absurd and somewhat misleading to relate current economic data – with the pandemic still in place – to pre-pandemic forecasts and solutions (price control, business plan, balance sheet of companies and businesses).
We need to "enter" the reality we are living with glasses that are appropriate to today's life in the world of the pandemic and post-pandemic.
Wearing glasses, however, cannot be just political, legislative and economic tools.
The pandemic has marked the private life of every citizen of Italy and the world: the answers given by the individual governments of European countries and other continents are only part of the reality that the Covid-19 emergency has forced to modify through sudden measures unusual legislation and never before implemented, at least within the individual Western democracies (think of the closures of shops and restaurants, the ordinances on safety and health).
The pandemic emergency has really affected everyone's personal lives.
Beyond the actions of the Government, perhaps the time has come to do their part, making us be ready: from the mother, to the teacher, to the shop assistant, to the cook of a restaurant, to the hairdresser struggling with new tools for beauty (safe), to the customer of a bar, to the engineer and architect who design shops and clubs for the public, the politician and those who govern a nation.
Italy is a country with a fabric made up of small and medium-sized enterprises, of many small businesses to the public: making the most of this type of reality becomes a necessary challenge in the post-pandemic time.
The real challenge of change today is to do well, using unusual European resources (Sure, NextGenerationEu and RecoveryFund, Recovery Plan, Ue Funds) and conveying, through banking-financial assets, in a targeted and effective way, projects for individual production companies for a real change of pace for the country.
The need is felt by many to build new work frames together, frames in which the public must necessarily dialogue with the private sector in a connivance that breaks with the now obsolete habits of the past that Italy would like to be anchored to a bureaucratic and slow reality. .
We would all like to live in a country in peace: we would like to work, have a life of well-being, thinking about the future with eyes of hope. The pandemic has shattered these dreams and forced us all to think about how to survive. Many find themselves dreaming of waiting for the end of the pandemic.
The country, however, cannot wait, it cannot stop and wait for everything to pass and for a return to full restaurants and ocean crowds for the fashion shows. Dreaming is beautiful, but living is even more so.
And then it is necessary to catch good ideas and healthy practices to be implemented in the world of work and in that of well-being and recreation that could contribute so much to creating business and induced work.
If the conditions are created to make the best use of the resources that the EU will make available, we will build a new country, despite the tragic event of the pandemic.
For the fashion industry, perhaps it will be worth rethinking new approaches and images with new forms of participation in the life of the company (Giorgio Armani is leading the way, but not only him) and new concrete forms of aid for companies and workers, too. with the help of EU funds and dedicated financial instruments to help investments and technological innovation.
Who knows, the world of catering will have to draw a sort of road map, within the Italian territory, to enhance and make known the geographies of true "places of knowledge and culinary beauty" with the ad hoc use of new forms of help (to help the post-pandemic crisis) and investment (to develop new projects especially for those little-known realities), through European resources and dedicated financial instruments that can contribute to the improvement of the structures (location, conversion of furniture in a safer format and hygienic) and of communication intended as a source of income (if you communicate well, effectively, you can attract and make the catering product more competitive).
Perhaps new behavioral practices should be studied: not only respecting Haccp rules in the premises, but attention and care for the customer: it will be obvious to think about it but too often, in the past before the pandemic, the overcrowding of customers did not allow rigor and minimal hygiene, inside of catering places.
Not just distancing or masks, therefore, but attention to the person, returning to behavioral ways, made of elegance and education, ways so dear to the world of Italy of the economic boom, Italy that tried to dream and build its own post-war future .
Also for the world of commerce, rather than dreaming of a return to the "Milan to drink" in a fashion version, it would be useful to further enhance human capital (employees and managers) which can become a resource for new customer loyalty, affecting with best practices who develop a new concept: Education & Luxury. Not the dream of luxury – which in an emergency moment of economic crisis would remain only a dream – but small moments of luxury to accompany the loyal customers, through the care of beauty or clothing, in total safety, and to make the "feel" proximity and the presence of someone who walks beside us and makes us feel precious, despite the pandemic.
Education, rethinking education as a moment of training (and loyalty) for customers: not only advice and beauty spells, but particular attention to the enhancement of the person-customer, not a product number, nor an information figure for future sales forecasts.
In short, let's take care of the idea of the future.
We return to help each other among people who do not scream and who are not united by an algorithm that captures our desires and our frustrations. Not the "loved good", but respecting us all by creating new perimeters of history: the history of each of us together with the history of the country.
We will try again in the fifth Leitframe seminar: we will try to create dialogue frames on the theme of trade, fashion and catering in the post-pandemic world together with Maria Silvia Sacchi, Economics Journalist Corriere della Sera, Chef Filippo la Mantia, Arianna Di Prospero, Country Manager Profumerie Marionnaud, Luca Bertozzi, Chief Financial & Operating Officer Ventis Srl, Luigi Caricato, Director of Olio Officina Magazine, Sonia Re DG of APCI.
Edward Hopper in 1927 created the work “Automat”: a painting with a diner and a lonely lady absorbed in sadly looking at a cup of coffee.
Hopper's painting is wonderful and at the same time iconic.
In today's post-pandemic world none of us would like to wake up and have the bleak image of the bars of the pandemic months in front of us just like the representation of Hopper's painting.
So, let's all take care of the idea of the new future to be built.
Let us be ready.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/blog/sara-solo-la-mascherina-a-salvare-il-mondo-della-post-pandemia/ on Mon, 21 Sep 2020 03:14:29 +0000.