Volatile supply chains pressure mid-market

Research from Grant Thornton UK LLP’s latest Business Outlook Tracker research, which looks specifically at 370 leaders of businesses with a supply chain, shows that over half (52%) are finding it harder to operate their business today, compared to 12 months ago.
To manage cost pressures, 61% of respondents said that their suppliers have agreed to more flexible (longer) payment terms, and 55% said increasing costs in their supply chain are being passed onto their customers through higher prices for their products/services.  42% of the respondents had already increased their prices, with a further 51% planning or expecting to raise prices this year. This increasingly challenging operating environment has been fueled by headwinds such as commodity prices, increased trade administration, energy costs and political uncertainty. 

Building a resilient and agile supply chain is now a top priority for 57% of respondents, with around 48% saying that their business did not have a good enough understanding of their business' supply chain to be able to respond quickly to disruption over the last 12 months. The top risks to mid-market supply chains were identified by business leaders as cyber security, Brexit disruption, ethical breaches by suppliers and rising inflation.

Oliver Bridge is Head of Operational Consulting at Grant Thornton UK LLP. He says businesses leaders should keep action simple and practical, first creating a risk benefit analysis and then finding opportunities that have the most buy in and can be actioned quickly. He says:

“Businesses need to take a risk and profitability-based approach to their supply chain as changes that affect businesses are happening constantly, whether you are prepared or not. Business leaders should take time to identify the most likely and damaging risks to identify improvements that can help build resilience, increase supply chain predictability and reduce supplier risk. They should then add analysis of profitability to the picture, which will help to identify the most resilient products and customers.

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