Some 47% of companies experienced a decrease in sales by more than 30% due to Russian aggression, including 19% of the decline exceeded 50%, with agriculture, retail, mining, and metallurgy being the most hit, according to a new Business Resilience Survey presented by the American Chamber of Commerce.

"The war has put a massive toll on Ukrainian business, however, companies demonstrated strong resilience, with some even capturing growth opportunities," the report says.

According to a survey conducted jointly with McKinsey & Company Ukraine on the eve of the first anniversary of the war, 3% of companies increased sales in 2022, 10% each either maintained them or kept the decline within 10%. Growth opportunities were noted by representatives of the banking and financial sector, IT.

Only 4% reduced the number of staff by more than 30%, while 29% had a reduction in the range of 10-30%, and 2% even increased the staff.

Some 4% of companies have stopped operations and do not know when they will be able to resume them, while 30% have stopped, but have already resumed.

According to those surveyed, the war pressure on business is likely to stay or even increase in 2023. Also among the disappointing forecasts is deterioration in aggregate demand as overall GDP growth remains uncertain, and the consumer spending power might further weaken due to drain of savings, increasing unemployment, and salaries cuts.

According to the results of the survey, 90% of companies have developed internal "contingency plans."

As part of these plans, 61% have established pre-war dedicated task forces (cross-functional teams or specialized risk function), 33% have developed such plans by the business units, and 6% have leveraged professional external help to prepare such plans. 40% of companies acknowledged that the plan did not properly work, including 29% did not anticipate the scale of disruption, and 7% did not have adequate resources to implement the plan.

According to published information, the main single challenging impacts of war in 2022 for 25% of respondents were Decreased demand for products or services (60% in engineering, 42% in retail), for 23% - physical damage of facilities (67% in FMCG, 50% in transport/engineering). %), 19% - disrupted supply chains (50% pharmaceuticals, 40% in mechanical engineering).

The energy disruption was named the main problem by 10% of respondents (30% in IT, 25% in banks), but among the top three problems it leads with 66%, ahead of disrupted supply chain 60% and decreased demand 52%.

Agile operating model and strong corporate culture have been seen by business as the key factors, helping to address the war challenges.

"While agile operating model is seen as the most helpful factor to address ongoing crisis, going forward businesses see diversification, more effective contingency planning, and building resilient teams as key priorities," the study says.

Going forward, the companies see the following priorities to better prepare for the crisis: strategy and business diversification, which would require rethinking investment plans (46%); more effective (and unbiased) contingency planning (29%); attracting and maintaining a resilient team and workforce (18%).