The latest Managing Automation reader poll on manufacturers' outlook for the new year clearly shows how industry is feeling as we enter 2009. Confidence in the economy has dropped dramatically compared with year-ago levels, the worldwide financial crisis has had a substantial impact on many companies, and just as many are either cutting or re-evaluating general spending and hiring plans as they struggle to understand the demand picture in the unpredictable months ahead.
These feelings are understandable and expected. We all know the grim statistics about the Dow and Nasdaq, unemployment levels, industrial production, and consumer confidence. And we all know that 2009 will shape up to be a tough year as the financial chain reaction, still under way, works itself out.
But there are things manufacturers can do now to both lessen the impact of the crisis and prepare for the recovery, which will eventually come.
The first of these is to work at helping to defeat the "mental recession." Fear, uncertainty, and doubt always constitute the first response to a crisis. This reaction is necessary and useful to push people and organizations into survival mode. Once in, though, the key is to direct the energy toward moving ahead. What Franklin Roosevelt said in his inaugural speech in 1933 — that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — is as relevant today as it was during the Great Depression.