DCA Live
Business Confidence Survey
April 2020

Last week DCA Live and Chief Listening Officers surveyed the DC business community about their confidence about the economy, their industry, and what COVID-19 has done to their companies.

Thanks again to Bob London of Chief Listening Officers for inspiring and helping create the survey as a means to provide context to the thousands of decision-makers served by DCA Live. Remember: This week’s results are a benchmark, and we will be sending this survey regularly to see how data is trending.

As of the week of April 13, 2020, here’s where things stand at a glance…

This Crisis Stinks! But My Industry Stinks Less 
While overall confidence in the macro economy sits—no surprise-- at a resoundingly poor 5.3 (out of 10), respondents actually had more confidence in their own industry at 6.3.

Job Seekers May Be Seeking Longer 
A whopping 82% of respondents said their company is either hiring more slowly or has actually instituted a freeze (52%). And 52% reported their companies have had either furloughs, layoffs or pay cuts.

Settle In—We May Be in for a Long Ride 
A majority of respondents (nearly 55%) believe it could take until as late as 1st quarter of 2021 for the economy to recover. About 24% were even more pessimistic saying recovery may not come until 3rd quarter of 2021.

On a scale of 1-10, what is your confidence level in the health of the macro economy, and in your industry?

We next asked, how has confidence changed in the economy and your industry from last week. Is it higher, lower or the same. We’ll see how this changes as a recovery takes hold.

Is your confidence level in your industry higher, lower or the same as last week

Next we asked about hiring and found that more than half have official hiring freezes in place. Only 20% are hiring at the same levels as they were in 2019.

What is the status of hiring in your company?

We asked what steps companies had taken with their employees. 70% have not yet furloughed, laid off, or cut compensation for employees.

Has your company? (Check all that apply)

More than half of you felt the downturn would last 6-12 months, with recovery by Q1 2021. Fewer than 10% felt the downturn would last longer than 18 months.

How long do you think this economic downturn will last?

We also asked what has been the biggest pain/disruption caused for your business by COVID-19? Here are a few responses:

• Impact on client's budgets and need to scale back existing projects with your firm

• Sales to new customers has slowed dramatically

• Delay of in-person engagements and loss of in-person business development opportunities

• Funding delays from investors

• Renewals and new sales. Companies are being told not to spend money and have RIFs

• Loss of customer attention trying to deal with the pandemic

• Uncertainty around planning. Expect substantial slow down in new sales and certain renewals, seeing some slow down but expect to see more in Q2 and slower paying customers

Finally, we asked are there any silver linings/new opportunities created for your business by COVID-19?

• We are focusing on internal initiatives that will give us an edge in the market when the economy rebounds

• Ability to target prospects on very specific problems businesses are having right now

• People realizing the value of connection and a deeper focus on the human side of organizational life. With luck this will become part of the "new normal”

• We are launching new products & services that will ideally become part of our long term growth

• Forces us to think more critically how we can help customers, develop products and message that very clearly address an important need. Why change, why us, why now - if we can't nail all three, we should not disrupt our customers/prospects at this time

Here is a WordCloud from all your responses on COVID's affect on your business!

The #1 words are: Customers, Mobile, Remote, Time

A few folks provided more color on how COVID-19 has affected their businesses:

Serving both Associations and the Events industry with SaaS software means the pandemic social distancing has hit the industries we serve in a considerable way. But our customers are doing better than industry average by easily pivoting in-person events to virtual experiences and thus maintaining event revenue streams during this time.  

- Jake Fabbri Chief Marketing Officer Fonteva Associations and Events clouds on Salesforce 

I have to say, Xcelerate Solutions has held our own during this crisis. Due to the phenomenal infrastructure we had in place we have managed to work through this with minimal impact to our employees and ultimately the Mission we support. Proud to be part of this strong and Mission focused organization. I feel blessed to continue my day to day work, strong as ever.  

- Mary Hunt Talent Acquisition Xcelerate Solutions Government IT Consulting Services 

The surge in demand and usage of global networks has proven created a surge in demand for what we offer; however we are all affected by global health, and there are no winners when major sectors of the economy are collapsing. In this rapidly-changing environment, business agility has never been more important, and leaders must examine every corner of their operations and consider how they should adjust to prepare for an extended pandemic and economic downturn. 

- Scott Ableman, SVP Marketing, Americas, GTT

As a marketing recruiting firm, we’ve certainly seen a slow-down in hiring over the last few weeks. However, we’re finding that while companies are implementing hiring freezes for full-time positions, hiring managers are getting approval to bring on interim consultants to fill gaps on their teams. With respect to our hiring outlook, we expect companies will remain hesitant to commit to FTE hires for the next few months, so they will rely even more on interim support. Fortunately our firm does both types of placements. 

- Sue Keith Managing Partner Ceres Talent Recruiting and Staffing

The thing that has brought me most hope and inspiration during this crisis is the response of our employees to uncertain times. The amount of creativity, hard work, and flexibility I have seen is inspiring. More than ever, I'm confident we will be a better company coming out of the crisis than we were heading into it.   

- Ryan Willumson, Co-Founder and CRO, Industry Dive 

COVID-19 has driven a new world of 100% remote users, 100% remote employees, 100% remote consumers.. which in turn has driven an 80% spike in use of mobile apps. At NowSecure our mission is to save the world from unsafe mobile apps so we are working with many businesses, agencies, institutions and groups to ensure safe mobile apps for this new world. We are also working with many groups building COVID-19 mobile apps to ensure their security and privacy to keep us all safe and help speed recovery. For businesses that are not heavily mobilized, this is the call now to digitally transform through mobile and we are seeking many jump on this game-changer opportunity. The road to recovery may be winding, but we believe we will all come out the other end mobilized and energized.  

- Brian Reed, Chief Mobility Officer, NowSecure Mobile 

COVID-19 has impacted everyone. With the exception of a few sectors, everyone has been negatively impacted. Its what you do with your company during this crisis that will dictate how you look going forward. I believe the economy will recover in a rolling format. Some sectors will come back fairly strong when we reopen the economy (medical...) and others like hospitality will take months to ramp up. I am bullish on the future, I just don't know exactly when that will be so until then we need to be judicious in how we manage our businesses and prepared to open up stronger than we were before COVID.  

- Marty Janis, CEO Atlantic Services Group, Inc. Parking and transportation services