2 minute read
Viewpoints
Carsten Kulcke,
general manager global business unit hotel, WMF
The UK has seen inflation reach a 40-year high, how much of an impact do these types of localised economic events have on your sales?
Local events have a major impact on local business. Recently, we have observed exchange rate fluctuations, “Freight inflation and Covid-related closures. rates are There is the normal commercial and operational side of these issues that we at levels deal with every day. But all of these factors that no one also have a major impact on consumers could have and, therefore, on our hospitality customers. Like Covid, inflation is no longer a local imagined problem, but a widespread concern that before the naturally leads to a decline in disposable pandemic” income and therefore, travel and entertainment spending. Our task is to react fast and be agile to these events and to support our hospitality customers with solutions and services that help to meet these various challenges.
Are you still seeing bottlenecks in your supply chain?
Our supply chain efforts are showing good progress so we have already increased, and will continue to increase, the availability of core products despite very high sales figures. Most goods are already available or will be available within the next four to eight weeks.
Is the price of freight causing concern or having an impact on business and if so, how are you dealing with it?
Freight rates are at levels that no one could have imagined before the pandemic, resulting in an ever-increasing share of costs allocated to transportation. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, as freight rates are slowly declining. They are still at historic highs, but they are moving in the right direction while freight services stabilise.
Michael Eichinger,
head of marketing, product & communications, Zwiesel Glas
The UK is seeing inflation reach a 40-year high, how much of an impact do these types of localised economic events have on your sales?
This is not yet visible in decreasing demand but will most probably be seen with some time leg. Inflation is a result of increasing costs all along the supply chain which also affects us as well.
A higher focus on optimisation of processes is required to partly absorb the costs. However, we are also forced to pass on the costs to our customers.
Are you still seeing bottlenecks in your supply chain?
We still have challenges due to broken supply chains across the entire spectrum of bought goods, which we believe we can handle by stocking up. The greatest supply uncertainty is currently in the gas supply.
Is the price of freight causing concern or having an impact on business and if so, how are you dealing with it?
The freight price has had a negative impact on the entire company, and on customers as well. We were partly able to compensate this by relocating our buying-in partners to production sites located somewhere next to our area, but partly the price has to be borne by the end customer and is reflected in the last price increase.
