DISRUPTION in our industry, there’s lots to contend with

By Kerry Johnson
Business Solution & Technology Specialist

In our COVID world, we’re seeing lots of disruption, some of it driven by the impacts of COVID around the globe, while others are just a part of a maturing new industry.

Let’s deal with the COVID disruption first…

As the rise and fall and now rise again of COVID around the world continues, impacts on technology and the logistics of distribution to markets also continues.

We’re seeing ongoing challenges in sourcing all things tech. COVID outbreaks continue, and so does the impact on major shipping ports around the globe.

Shipping from China

Right now, there is major disruption in the southern China shipping ports of Shenzhen and Guangzhou where waiting times for vessels to berth at Yantian International Container Terminal in Shenzhen have “skyrocketed” from an average waiting time of 0.5 days to 16 days.

Guangdong, home to these major shipping ports and the subject of a recent COVID outbreak, accounts for approximately 24% of China’s total exports, with the Shenzhen and Guangzhou ports being in the global top 5 for shipping container movements.

The flow on effects

This follows from earlier disruption when there was a global shortage of shipping containers to transport goods, the major blockage in the Suez Canal and even reports of cardboard shortages for manufacturers to package their goods. The stories might come and go in the media, but the impacts are long lasting.

The answer to these logistical challenges?

Plan ahead! Our local economy is relatively strong and we’re seeing businesses wanting to implement growth plans, but don’t leave it to the last minute to make business decisions and expect it to all happen. More than ever, we are being impacted by global resource shortages and supply disruption so be prepared for your own plans to be disrupted. It’s the world we now live in.

Disruption in the world of SAAS (Software as a Service)

Over the last 10 years we’ve seen a major shift from on-premise software solutions to the new ‘cloud’ (SAAS) based products. Whilst we have seen tremendous growth in the sector, it has come at a cost with industry profitability falling by half over the decade.

With this sector maturing, we are now seeing a significant amount of disruption with acquisitions and mergers happening all over as businesses look for growth opportunities and more secure and profitable investments going forward.

Major Disruption for Inventory Solutions

Just in the Inventory and Distribution landscape alone, we’ve seen all major players in this space subject to disruption recently.

Late last year we saw UK based Access Group acquire New Zealand based Unleashed (along with Attache, Sage, MicrOpay, WageEasy and Handisoft in the APAC region)

US based CIN7 acquired DEAR Systems and Orderhive to create a market leading Inventory and Order Management solution.

And now we’ve seen TradeGecko (Singapore), a competitor product to CIN7, DEAR Systems & Unleashed, acquired by US based Intuit to be integrated into their accounting platform for the US market only! So, if you’re one of TradeGecko’s customers operating outside of the US (and there are many in Australia and Tasmania) you’ve got 12 months to find another solution before it gets closed down!

More disruption to come

Given the proliferation of cloud SAAS solutions in the market, rationalisation and profit building will continue for some time to come. Whilst there are no guarantees, all we can suggest is do your homework and engage with specialists in the industry who are seeing the landscape changes and can advise as best as possible the right path to take in a very challenging landscape.

This is an article for Business Blindspots Tasmania. To ensure you receive our regular updates from expert business advisers across a range of areas follow our  LinkedIn group.

 
You can catch Kerry here:

Sign up to our newsletter

Business Blindspots ©