Both COVID and Brexit are key factors in the changing dynamic as companies risk losing annual profits due to supply chain shocks, trade wars, pandemics and climate change with a recent report highlighting that the loss could be as much as 40%*.
The latest analysis from the Office of Health Economics suggests a typical pharmaceutical company could expect to see £23.5million worth of added costs per year to cover supply chain disruption.
OCO Global has said it is the impact on costs and profits that has influenced many businesses in sectors such as advanced manufacturing and life sciences to seek new supply chains internally within the UK.
Commenting, Gareth Hagan, Commercial Director at OCO Global said:
“Businesses have the opportunity to cement themselves as integral links of intraregional supply chains in the UK, especially with our sectoral strengths being aligned to the industries that we are seeing such trends emerge.”
“Life Sciences is primed to be an important sector for UK onshoring, especially with uncertain EU access; UK Pharma has traditionally relied on a heavily integrated EU supply chain with over 73 percent of imports being sourced in the EU.”
“And within manufacturing we had already begun to see trends emerge as imports of semi-finished goods from the EU have continuously dropped in the last three years due to the uncertainty of tariffs”
“Our companies within these industries can offer a secure and cost-effective alternative to wider sectoral players who are in the midst of a transition to localised supply chains.”
Invest NI’s Executive Director of International Business, Steve Harper, added:
“Northern Ireland’s well-established life & Health sciences and advanced manufacturing & Engineering sectors are founded on a mix of strong indigenous and foreign companies who are supported by world-leading research and development within our universities.”
“Our sectors are complemented by a friendly business climate and a pipeline of talent being continuously produced from our education system. We certainly have the capability to attract companies interested in onshoring.”
The onshoring trend was discussed on the latest episode of OCO Global’s Covid-19 insight series where Commercial Director Gareth Hagan was joined by Invest NI’s Steve Harper and Invest North East’s Guy Currey. The series, now in its 14th episode seeks the views of global business leaders to provide insights and analysis on the impacts from the crisis and latest trends in trade, investment and FDI.
Gareth Hagan of OCO Global
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