“Recession?
Corporate flexibility is back.”

Jean-Michel Aulas
Recession. Every day over the last few months has brought more bad news, sometimes contradictory, but in each case accompanied by the announcement of a series of measures intended to halt the consequences of the crisis, whose origins lie outside the corporate world. Despite these strong headwinds, some people are starting to suggest that calmer times are around the corner. "The recession will be over in June", or "New business is starting to come in again." But who can really put forward a reliable forecast?

Whatever the outcome of the profound upheaval in the financial sphere, with its serious consequences for non-financial companies, one thing is clear: nothing will ever be the same again. At the highest levels, economic leaders have been asking the right questions and the resulting orientation shows it.

Companies are undergoing similar soul-searching.

In the technology sector and particularly in information technology, massive, long-term, monolithic investment is out. Every project undertaken must have an immediate solution. Cegid has always put priority on supplying flexible, agile, progressive solutions offering a rapid return on investment. Small and mid-sized companies have known this for a long time. Today, all business leaders, regardless of the size of their companies, must act and react as entrepreneurs. This crisis will serve as an opportunity for many large groups and their subsidiaries to analyze their IT orientation and investments from a qualitative point of view and make the decisions that will enable the company to get through the downturn. Quickly.

Cegid’s objective for 2009 will be to work with company executives as they prepare for the inevitable recovery, in the knowledge that the growth phase will not wait and that they must be ready.

With its agnostic technologies, ultra-modern, fluid concepts and solutions with highly-responsive, industry-specific functionality, Cegid has catapulted its customers and all companies, regardless of their size, into a new economic era, where optimization and the flexibility of its products will foster and accelerate corporate growth.

Jean-Michel Aulas
Chairman