In our previous blog post, What Brexit means for Global Trade, we looked at the implications on the United Kingdom leaving the Europe Union referendum. We also looked at how that would ultimately affect trade relations within the EU Member States and its reliance on the Single Market policy established by the EU for hassle free trade and lesser duties, quotas and customs overheads. In today’s blog post, we look at how global supply chain and trade together has been affected since the Brexit decision was made and get a temperature within the economies and industry trends to watch out for in terms of a post-Brexit world.
Supply Chain Defined
Simply defined, supply chain relates to the “sequence of processes leading involved in the production and distribution of a commodity.” When it comes to supply chain management, you are looking at the likes of a “system of organisations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from the supplier to the end customer.” However, business logistics managerment differs somewhat slightly to that of supply chain, where the former concerns the “production and distribution process within a company” whereas the latter concerns “suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers required to distribute the product to the end consumer.”
Global Supply Chain
With the competition amping up, supply chain is becoming an important factor in maintaining competitiveness in the global market. By adapting to changing technological and development trends, and finding means to decrease costs with sourcing, production, and delivery, global supply chain processes are becoming more proactive. Global market companies are not only looking at their supply chain processes, but also formulating measure to exceeds customer expectations and their experiences with delivery in terms of speediness and quality.
EU and Global Supply Chain Post-Brexit
In the post-Brexit setting, with the UK leaving the European Union, a rebalancing has been called for to steady current global supply chain processes for the EU market, especially without the Single Market trade policies in place, much uncertainty has been noted which in turn may affect the footprint of global supply chain. Decisions and investments concerning warehousing, manufacturing and delivery capabilities will definitely be questioned. In such a sense, the calibration of cost levels against quality of service will need to be reset and balanced. The following is a snapshot of the EU Supply Chain with Gross Exports Dividends by Value-Added Exports by Destination from the UK courtesy of the Global Council (Brexit: The Impact on the UK and the EU, 2015).