Dear friends,

what are your #2021resolutions?

We are still on the long tail of the Covid-19 pandemic thus my resolution is to learn how to manage this series of on and off by changing my modus operandi accordingly. I believe that two strategies fit the purpose:

• diversification, by developing businesses and/or markets that are differently exposed to lockdowns and trade disruptions, and 
• flexibility, by turning the nature of cost from fixed to the variable (eg, pay per use) and the nature of revenues from variable to fixed (eg, subscriptions).

For some, Covid-19 has been labelled as a ‘Black swan‘, a low probability/high impact event, named after the 2007 Nassim Taleb’s book. However, those living in the Southern hemisphere know that those swans are not as rare as thought by the Roman poet Juvenal; hence, better get ready to face uncertainty and to boost the resilience of respective businesses.

At the Chamber of Commerce, we will use the high-restriction phases to plan and organize the activities to undertake during the low-restriction phases, as you will read in what follows.

I would like to thank Ghella, a leading company in the construction of tunnels and major infrastructure projects worldwide, for becoming a new sponsor and Infonet Solutions and Collinson & Co. for confirming their sponsorship.  Thank you for being with us and for contributing with your feedback, ideas and support.

Stefano Riela, ICCNZ President.