Keynote Speaker on Surviving Recession

Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a business futurist specializing in disruptive innovation and the impact of technology on business and the broader economy. After 10+ years of economic expansion in the USA, we are overdue for a recession, and business executives are well aware of an impending downturn. Economists point to an inverted yield curve (between the 2-year and 10-year interest rates) as a reliable indicator of a coming recession, but there are also many things that are different in this economic cycle when compared to previous cycles. Chief among them is the extensive use of quantitative easing by central banks around the world, a trend started by Japan 30 years ago. Patrick has authored five (5) business books and has lectured at various educational institutions including Stanford and Purdue Universities, and is a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV. He has a broad understanding of the forces affecting economic activity and, more importantly, he understands what businesses need to do to survive and even thrive amidst recession.

Past speaking clients include:

Recent speaking destinations include:

Conference Keynote Speech on Revenue Growth During Recession

Recessionary economic conditions are opportunities for well-managed companies to gain market share and position themselves for slingshot growth when conditions improve. Change creates opportunity. When your competitors are struggling, it exposes their weaknesses, allowing you to encroach into their market position. The key is to stay on offense. Don’t play defense! That’s a recipe for failure. See past the recession. Look for trends in your industry and project forward to envision the future version of your industry, post-recession. That’s Patrick’s message during recessionary environments. In particular, Patrick looks at the role technology plays in the industry, and how those technologies are evolving. By incorporating new technologies and deploying across the enterprise, companies can position themselves for market leadership, expanding their “unique selling proposition” (UPS) relative to their competitors.

Speech on Economic Recession Strategies

Corporate executives need to prepare for the coming recession. It’s inevitable, and the well-prepared will have significant advantages during the downturn. Technology is evolving along an exponential curve, and dozens of critical technologies (including autonomous vehicles, 5G mobile connectivity, artificial intelligence, and blockchain) will be deployed in the next few years. It’s tempting to delay investments during economic downturns, but that strategy is not advisable during these critical years. Instead, companies should prioritize business opportunities now and continue investments regardless of immediate profitability circumstances. The impact will deepen profitability implications during the downturn, but they will also result in slingshot market opportunities when business and consumer spending rebound.

Leading indicators provide valuable insights. Here are some of the most followed leading indicators:

Coming Recession Keynote

It’s inevitable that economies shrink periodically. Many things contribute to this cycle, but loan grown relative to savings growth is a central determinant. If you subtract savings growth from loan growth, you get a number, either positive or negative, that follows a remarkably smooth sine wave. As loan growth slows and savings growth expands, the economy goes into recession. And although most recessions only last between 10 and 14 months, the negative number (loan growth minus savings growth) continues for three or four years. Eventually, as business and consumer confidence improves, loan growth and savings growth come back into balance. And as confidence continues to increase, loan growth takes the lead, resulting in a positive number (by subtracting the two from each other). This is when the economy is slowly becoming over-heated. This phase can last for many years, but it can’t last forever. As a result, loan growth has to eventually slow, and that usually happens precisely when savings rates start to rise, reversing the trend. These factors, combined with technology trends, give business executives invaluable insights when refining business strategy and expanding market dominance.

Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a keynote speaker who has spoken at business conferences in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.