Bucharest, January 28, 2009 - Companies having a difficult time facing the current crisis could look at a few more choices during the crisis before considering layoffs, says Jon Gornstein, President of Persona Global and a lifetime leadership and change management consultant, now in Romania for a local project.

"Before deciding on job cuts, companies could listen to their customers' opinion on what is really important for them, what are the products and services that indeed are unique. After the customer has spoken, some of the organization's expenses can be discontinued because the customer does not value them, and thus result in substantial savings", explains Mr Gornstein.

After working closely with and consulting for companies all over the world Jon Gornstein knows how vital it is to "listen" to your customers before a making a strategic business decision. In crisis situations, companies should mainly listen to their best customers, the most profitable, those who spend on the company products or services.

"Some companies, for instance, might be spending large sums on advertising while a customer survey could prove that those are not valued. So, that particular company could shift the expense or simply cut it", Gornstein says.

In the middle of the worldwide economic crisis Gornstein's company has decided to expand to Romania and is launching today its partnership with MMM Consulting, a local HR development and training company.

Since 1980, Persona GLOBAL® has been both a direct management consultancy, as well as a provider to organizational development practitioners of robust, field-tested, performance based methodologies and survey instrumentation. The Persona GLOBAL® methodologies and metrics are currently deployed in more than 50% of Fortune 1000 companies in 45 countries.