Is Coronovirus affecting your supply chain?

Is Coronavirus (COVID-19) affecting your supply chain? Maybe it has not yet, but will it?

Global supply chains have become incredibly complex and the Chinese economy plays an extremely important role in the global economy so there may be some unpleasant surprises in store should import restrictions and containment efforts escalate. For example, a UK manufacturer who imports a certain component or material from abroad might not know the origin of that component – it could easily be from China. However, this outbreak actually provides a valuable lesson.

Sourcing from the Far East does seem appealing, certainly on cost, but buy price alone should never be considered. If product cannot be shipped, or as it stands now cannot be manufactured at all, then your buy price and source has huge ramifications on your own performance. We are hearing real experiences where Far East manufacturers still do not have staff returning back from CNY and factories are not running to capacity. If then importing goods from this area has restrictions, then the consequences on your supply chain could be huge.

Companies must learn from this and build resilient supply chains by diversifying their sources. St Cross has built up relationships with multiple vendors here in the UK and the EU, we manufacture everything here in the UK and this gives our customers an insurance policy should things go wrong and, clearly as we have seen in China recently, things do go wrong.

If you are experiencing issues with this situation, then do please contact one of the sales team on +44 23 8022 7636, or by email to sales(at)st-cross-electronics.co.uk