The Year it Began
2020 was the year of Covid-19, a devastating new virus killing hundreds of thousands and throwing the world economy into disarray. It was a year of lockdowns, travel bans, cancelled events and restricted movements. A significant proportion of our lives was taken from us, in some instances leaving us isolated from the outside world altogether and no single person could escape that reality, not without consequences.
For a time, it was quite bleak but thankfully, the human race was resilient and persevered towards fighting back against the virus. A vaccine was developed before the end of the year and the first UK vaccination was given to Margaret Keenan, in December 2020. From there, the world quickly bounced back into form.
The vaccinations rolled out quickly for many of the richer nations, with others following behind. To date, 7billion doses have been given to over 3.2billion individuals worldwide. Source Google News Worldwide Covid Tracker. But the world then confronted a completely new problem, the supply chain pandemic.
The Supply Chain Pandemic
While we began to get back up on our feet again, the pandemic left behind a wake of something new to contend with. The shutdown switched off the global machine of producing goods and not too long after the vaccine roll-out, we were left with a supply shortage situation. Not just within one or two industry sectors, but supplies affecting many, many different producers, playing havoc amongst the normal goings-on of many countries.
However, it was not all because of the pandemic, some unrelated supply issues were already brewing.
Before and after the pandemic, issues had already or were becoming rooted within, causing even greater delay and pain. In the UK, Brexit had begun impacting supplies as the movement of goods for post Brexit agreements needed to be negotiated and signed-off before the deadline on the 31st December 2019. That failed, and negotiations continued for another year.
Across the seas in Egypt, reports emerged that the Evergreen container vessel, the Evergiven got stuck in the Suez canal, closing off this vital artery for over 2 weeks and disrupting vital worldwide shipping supplies from the Far East to Europe and the West.
In the wake of the pandemic, it appeared that just a slight disruption to normal operations was exacerbated. All-in-all though, the impact of shutting down proved the greatest force of nature affecting the world’s goods as it started to wreak havoc on everything we would call ‘the norm’.
CNBC reported how the chaos has been because of lack of workers and key components / raw materials. Global supply chains fell short of the recovery and have now left us in short supply. From food, cars to everyday consumer goods, the knock-on effect from factories providing the simplest of commodities or components, have halted production and created a ripple effect that is leaving a lot of us short of the everyday goods we came to know and love.
Back in the UK, another effect of Brexit is still being flagged as the new movement of people rules also caused upset to industry. The Institute for Government website reports the ‘free movement of people’ that ended had impacted on EU nationals seeking typical agricultural and food manufacturing roles, historically occupied by a high number of said positions. Farmers struggled to employ fruit and veg pickers and the produce was left in the ground to rot. The ripple effect meant less goods to go around, less to sell, difficulty with economies of scale and reduced competitiveness, ultimately increasing costs and driving inflation.
The circumstances of the pandemic impacted more than just our ability to produce goods. In the US, truck drivers became scarce and in short supply to transport from port to warehouse and in China, their production was halted on certain days due to power shortages. NY times reported that Power Cuts and even blackouts have slowed the factories across China, adding to the threat of the country’s slowing economy and snarling the supplies ahead of a rebound Christmas.
Planning Ahead
The expectation is that we won’t be seeing improvements to all these issues just yet. Moody’s analytics predict supply chain issues will get worse before they get better.
So what does that mean for business and customers? In Essential Supplies, we have also been operating above capacity, but while the absence of some goods meant less availability when buying, it did however offer an opportunity for us to sell smarter. Smarter preparation of requests, production of manufactured items, and servicing of our customer’s needs. We rose to the challenge as we could see the appetite for getting back to normal was there.
We just had to make do with what we had for a while. That meant looking after our customers and focusing on channels where we were strongest and carefully engaging in new products and new sectors which were risky.
EV charging was going to become a large part of the Essential Supplies portfolio, but the time was not right. And so, we decided to wait and in 2022, we will turn our attention back to EV charging once more. Because when life has returned to normal, it would have been the proactive, reliable, and sustainable businesses that prevailed. And a prevailing company’s customer base would have seen us through.
To that end, we have been proactively reviewing our customer base in order that we appoint the right resource and give a sense of unbroken supply continuity, while trying to accommodate unplanned requests. We have been recommending to businesses to think about forecasting and the reservation of goods, by as much as 6 months. It’s not quite the Just-in-time that we’re used to, but it will be just in time for those that plan ahead.
Training
In the meantime, we’re about to enter our quieter period. During this time, we have an opportunity to stop, reflect and begin the work of planning for the year ahead. In this, we look at providing some valuable training events here in our offices in Cornwall. Picking up some simple, yet crucial skills in Event Power, Event Lighting, testing etc, and enjoying the odd baked savoury from the homeland of pasties. If you’d like to know more about this please contact us.
What We Learnt
The world is very much a different place now. While some believe, now that the vaccines are rolling out, that we’re going back to the way things were, we are actually going forward into something new.
It’s not quite an abyss, but we don’t exactly know what it will be like. As we move forward, we may have to manage expectations. Supply limitation will mean working collaboratively. 2022 is predicted to be the year of the boom, so it could be far trickier to manage. With the gap ever widening, it may not be a matter of getting what you want, but wanting what you get!
But at Essential Supplies, our teams will work closely with customers to ensure what they’re looking for is achievable or an alternative solution can be made available. We’ll endeavour to look after you, and look forward to a prosperous 2022 together.
If there’s anything we can help you with, please feel free to contact us.
