A recent Roland Berger study comparing Romanian and the German managers' general expectations following the crisis shows that managers in both countries expect their respective  economies to grow between 1 and 2 percent in 2012. A similar level is anticipated for 2013, but Romanian managers have a greater tendency to predict the extreme (both positive and negative).

Despite the general wave of uncertainty, over 60 percent of respondents in both countries expect growth of over 10 percent for their companies, much more than for two economies in their entirety. German managers are more confident about their companies - 75 percent of them anticipate the growth of their organizations.

Given the latest developments at the macroeconomic level, more than half of those surveyed see a high risk of Romania suffering a new recession, while 70 percent of German managers do not foresee such a scenario.

More Romanian managers believe the public debt crisis will have have a negative impact on the Romanian economy (68 percent) than the 38 percent of German managers who expect public debt to negatively affect their economy (38 percent). However, Romanian managers expect this negative impact to falls less on their own companies, although it is considered more exposed in this sense (29 percent vs. 12 percent in Germany).

For the eurozone, over 50 percent of respondents are convinced that there will be a disintegration of the European Monetary Union and nearly one third are unsure. Over 65 percent of managers, both Romanian and German, see the logic in a voluntary Greek exit from the eurozone, however, 49 percent of German managers believe this will actually happen, compared to 69 percent of Romanian managers.

More than half of Romanian and more than two thirds of German companies are considered well prepared for a downturn in 2012, compared to their competitors.

In 2011, 52 percent of the respondents in Romania and 66 percent of those from Germany indicated that they have been helped significantly by the crisis of 2008/09 to improve their long-term competitiveness through restructuring.

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, founded in 1987, in Germany, is an international consultancy firm. It was the first international management consultancy company to open a Bucharest office, back in 1992.

Ioana Toader, ioana.toader@romania-insider.com  

(photo source sxc.hu)