Broken Supply Chain Offers New Opportunities

Article Located In FORWARD Magazine

Global brands are not sitting still waiting for broken supply chains to repair themselves. The impact on many big brand names has been brutal ever since the Covid pandemic exposed fundamental frailties in the global dependency of a single market’s essential goods and skilled labor. Amongst the hardest hit, have been those products which rely upon electronics and microchip componentry for their very function, and also on the large numbers of highly trained workers to produce these and other goods – brands such as Apple and Samsung.

The problem came to light when businesses failed to heed best practice and placed all their eggs essentially in one basket – China. While official data may still mask the extent to which China’s workforce was impacted by the pandemic, the consequences are clearly there for all to see in the world’s broken supply chains. Many big brands, having lost vast sums in global sales, are setting up new production facilities in other markets where infrastructure, investment incentives, and an educated workforce are readily available.

Of particular note are India, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Taiwan and Mexico, and this diversification in the supply chain across the Asia-Pacific region is having a roll-on effect in the international shipping and air cargo industries. Production of electronic componentry used widely in the automotive industry is enjoying a boom in Mexico and air freight operators such as Pacific Air Cargo are exploring growth opportunities to connect the expanding markets of Asia and Latin America.

To make this viable, cargo traffic cannot be exclusively in one direction but perhaps by creating new shipping lanes, the old adage, ‘build it and they will come’ will apply. More research is required and robust partnerships forged, and essential to any success will be matching the right capacity to the market demand. Watch this space.