It's September, and based on the prognostications of a few months ago, we're supposed to be enjoying the fruits of an economic recovery.

So far, the fruit is pretty bitter. And the prospects for recovery anytime soon are not encouraging. Manufacturing and trade sales were down in June from year-ago levels and inventories were up, according to numbers released by the Commerce Department in mid-August. Through mid-year, manufacturers' shipments were off 3.3 percent from 2000 levels, and the decline in shipments between May and June was the largest since August 1992.

At this writing, the nation is not officially in a recession—generally defined as two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product. But with the run of layoffs around the nation and other gloomy news, it's sure felt like a recession. And this could turn out to be one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. A year or two from now, I suspect that we'll look back and wonder whether many businesses overreacted to the slowing economy, thus making lemons out of the lemonade.

Part of the psychology driving current cutbacks is the result of an artificial high created by the Internet frenzy that threw billions of dollars into the economy. Like the grasshopper in the old fable, we enjoyed the rich harvests of that brief season without anticipating the coming fall. So when that boom proved as ephemeral as cyberspace and things returned to what should have passed for normal, matters seemed much worse than they should have. That's not to deny the very difficult problems many businesses have had to face, particularly in the high-profile high-tech sector of our economy. But the economy will recover, if only we'll let it.

The issue of how to react to a slowing economy was one of the core elements of our 10th annual Giants of Shipping Report, a collaboration among Georgia Southern University, the University of Tennessee, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and this magazine. (Click here to see the report. ) Much of the prosperity of the last decade grew out of efforts to replace old ways of doing business with new practices that were both more effective and more efficient. Logistics managers developed ways to collaborate with providers rather than confront them and took advantage of technology to gain a better handle on their supply chains. To slip back now would be a mistake. As Karl Manrodt, leader of the Giants project, says, "In times like this, some firms will stop investing in technology or other solutions that will make them more competitive and efficient. The leaders, however, will continue to look for ways to improve their processes and strengthen their position in the market. Falling behind when the market is down may keep you down when the market turns."

Continued investment can be a hard sell when management is under intense pressure to cut costs to protect the bottom line. But managing solely for the downturn, without anticipating the recovery, could make it difficult to partake of the bounty when the economic season turns again.