Credit Manager Magazine 9/2021

3 CREDIT MANAGER MAGAZINE WRZESIEŃ / SEPTEMBER 2021 EDITORIAL Ludo Theunissen President of the Instituut Voor Kredietmanagement (Ivkm), Belgium President of Fecma - Federation of European Credit Management Associations FECMA – inspiration for Credit Managers FECMA – the Federation of European Credit Management Associations was founded in 1986, so we celebrate our 35th anniversary this year. Over its history FECMA has seen many changes in the credit management profession. The whole business environment has changed, and that has also been the case for credit management. FECMA is obviously the ideal platform for international exchange of knowledge and best practice. That is why FECMA took the initiative to organize Pan-European Credit Management Congresses. The first one was very successfully organized in Budapest, Hungary in 2013. It was followed by new editions in Brussels, Belgium in2015 and Malta in 2018. And the next one was scheduled in Krakow, Poland in 2020. But for reasons well known to you all, this edition of our congress had to be postponed to September 2021. In the meantime, FECMA organized a series of online meetings, known as FECMA Digital Forum. The large numbers of attendees from all over the world has shown that there is a real need for credit managers to have international contacts and information. We had excellent speakers discussing traditional and of course also quite some new topics on credit management. And there are quite some new topics, given some very special events that have occurred over the last years, that had a more specific impact on credit management. To start with we had Brexit. The UK left het EU and we are still struggling with the new rules and procedures. Credit managers play a key role in these processes. Fortunately for the European credit management community the CICM remained one of the driving forces of FECMA. In the new situation international contacts and exchange of experience and good practices have become more important than ever. But of course, there is this other external event that has changed the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to change everything. Our life and our work were completely transformed. We have been giving a lot of attention to the consequences of all this. By now, little by little we are hoping that sooner (as we hope) or later we will go to a ‘new normal’. The point is that we do not really know what this new normal will be. We know that working from home will remain a valid alternative to the office for many organisations. Not full time as it has been over the last 18 months, but flexibility in the organisation and location of work will remain. We have indeed seen that working from home can be more comfortable, especially avoiding the time lost in traffic jams. And online meetings are easy to organise, they start on time, they are shorter and often more to the point and efficient. But on the other side we really miss the close contact with our colleagues. And of course, with the customers. We have seen new ways of collaboration and negotiations appearing, internally with our colleagues from sales, and externally with our customers. This is the ideal moment to look out for inspiration and experience from our international colleagues. This Pan-European conference is more relevant than ever. So we hope to meet you all in Krakow, where we can discuss this new normal and share our experience and ideas.