We took the children to Cornwall last week.
In view of the increasing travel restrictions I’m rather glad we did decide to stay in the UK, despite the car journey being far worse than a quick airplane hop to southern Europe!
It seems we are re-shoring more than just our holidays; our manufactures, production, supply chains to boot.
I’ve been wondering about the fate of globalisation, not just due to the virus, but particularly with the current state of geopolitics in the world today.
We have many customers who have moved their supply chains to the UK or to Europe.
Their initial concern was that this would increase costs.
However, the benefits seem to be outweighing this. Quality control is easier to manage, shorter production runs mean less storage and a higher turnover of goods for the space occupied, lower delivery costs and times have also enabled a more “just-in-time” approach to their stock management. And… it actually isn’t that more expensive!
Good news? Perhaps for wealthier countries but not necessarily elsewhere. It depends of course from which perspective. There are a myriad of articles written by the FT on this issue. Technical advancements in manufacturing and replacing low skilled workers will no longer give developing countries the same opportunity to “haul large numbers of their workers out of poverty through low-cost manufacturing.”
Evidently the carbon offset is a bonus but until fossil fuels are replaced with renewable energy this is just tinkering at the issue.
We live in a rapidly changing world. Let’s, together, make it a pleasure to be part of…
Have a lovely bank holiday weekend 🙂
Sam.
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