The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 27: Oct/Nov 2016 | Page 17

RISE OF THE ROBOT

Is your purchasing strategy
ready for Brexit? by Doug Fellow, PAMS
Whether it will affect you directly or indirectly
and whether you see it as a risk or an
opportunity, Brexit is here and will impact all
our supply chains in one way or another.
It is impossible to predict exactly what will
change and how it will manifest for each of
our mixed and varied businesses. Will prices
go up or down?
Do standards and specifications remain
unchanged? Will our choice of Incoterms
need to be different? Are there new
markets now open to us that we can buy
from more easily? How secure are our
current supply contracts?
What we can be sure of is that things
will change, and large organisations with
established procurement controls may be
better equipped to take advantage of these
shifting sands. SMEs, however, could find
themselves left behind and therefore need
to be more agile - quick to establish new
sourcing strategies that flex to changing
markets and provide a framework for
securing a good deal.

MIDDLE

For some, now may also be the
right time to focus on optimising the
performance of essential supply lines, to
seek to align strategic aims with critical
suppliers and to collaborate wherever
possible to mutually strengthen respective
market attractiveness.
Brexit is not simply an exercise
or another initiative, it’s real, and
organisations, particula