Corporate DispatchPro DAVID SPITERI
A supply of optimism The European surplus of trade in goods swung from â‚Ź83.5 billion in the first quarter this year to â‚Ź48.9 billion in the second quarter. Official data shows that the balance in goods has been on an upward trend for the past few years, both intra- and extra-EU. Then Covid-19 happened.
Most economic sectors are still trying to find their feet in the wobbly terrain of the pandemic world, but supply chains around the globe demonstrated their resilience by adapting quickly to the drastic change in consumer demand. The crisis was the unintended trigger that helped supply chains to overcome the inertia that held them back from the advantages of digitalisation and automated system. Suddenly, the ways of logistics seemed stuck in a bygone era of manual processes and chequebased transactions. The new social distancing requirements finally led to a better way of achieving supply results by optimising ordering times and increasing cost-efficiency across the entire chain. Government departments and customs agencies around the world have also shifted many of their services online, recreating an efficient superstructure to facilitate the transfer of goods. The effects of the outbreak were not equally distributed among the global supply chain, though. Some suppliers could not change fast enough and shrinking demand in markets such as education or the accommodation sector evaporated their businesses overnight. Other suppliers, like those serving technology industries or certain speciality retail categories, experienced incredible growth. Besides individual businesses, the entire structure of global supply changed as shipping lines revised their routes and cut out destinations that were not considered feasible enough in the circumstances. At one point, there was a critical shortage
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