Recently at BDP’s 13th annual supply chain event (of course, held virtually), BDP asked the audience a series of live questions about several areas of today’s new work environment that we are facing, and the responses were interesting.
Obtaining direct responses from a live audience always helps us to better understand the issues that the audience is currently facing and therefore assist them in presenting engaging feedback.
Since 2020 and into 2021 we have all been working in a new work environment that continues to deliver many new and unexpecting challenges. Several questions presented were in some manner connected, “has the workplace created new work challenges for your company? And your ability to stay informed of new rules and regulatory changes?”
The majority of the responses told us that 53% did feel the impact of the new workplace, however, when it came to specific regulatory challenges the number increased to 65%, while these responses are not that surprising, we were also told that 24% were not up to date on the regulatory changes, which is somewhat of a higher number due to the many regulatory updates that impacted companies in 2020 and into 2021.
We could have not moved forward without a question about Brexit and the impact on customer’s business - and over 52% responded by letting us know that the Brexit impact was too early to fully realize the changes needed.
This result was a surprise to us, as many day-to-day questions and queries have come our way since late last year and followed into 2021 when Brexit took effect.
We also learned that Zero emissions is a worthy goal that companies are still managing in their supply chains, and the final questions pertained to the trading of goods between the EU and the US. Those responses showed that over 56% of respondents felt that since January through February of this year, that it’s too early to feel any change in getting back to normal with the US. However, there was over 31% optimism in the belief that 2021 will be a year of rebound between our two economies.
Listening and then taking some action are always important steps that all we need to get back to some semblance of the new norm. As stated in the event, there’s no going back to the way it was: we are living in a new world, with new challenges, new workforces, yet only tomorrow knows…
