When thinking about #supplychain #planning for #hardware business, you will inevitably be confronted with a macro situation and you will have to make a judgment about how is it gonna affect you & your business!
That judgment needs to come from understanding...
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...how the situation affects
1/ your customer
2/ your supply chain partners
3/ your sales channel partners
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Now that is a hard problem because of many unknowns but we now know one thing for sure and that's where you should start
-> there's a global increase in #inflation <-
That's your start! Simple, right.
Now you only have to make up your mind about...
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...whether inflation increase was driven more by
1/ excessive aggregate demand
including loose monetary, credit, and fiscal policies everywhere
(and we know for sure that it was the main driver of the stock-markets uptrend in 2021)
or
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2/ by negative supply shocks
including the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, supply-chain bottlenecks, a reduced US labor supply, the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on commodity prices, and China’s “zero-COVID” policy
(where these could result in a stagflationary environment)
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Once you pick your side - you can plan accordingly.
If you are doom(er) then you'll say it's both and you are fckd anyway so do nothing differently and just wait for the market to pick a side for you 🤔 (this is a joke! hope you're not even thinking about joining this camp)
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But say you have your informed opinion...which obviously depends on your industry, size, type of product and where in product life-cycle you are, but all that taken into account, by choosing your side...
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...you now know what you should be doing with regards to:
- hiring
- inventory
- debt levels
- pricing
- promotions
So get at it. Summer is in full swing and business always speeds up in Q3-Q4 but you must be ready for it (yesterday)! 😉