How’s Business?

At the end of August 2023 I asked people on our mailing list ‘How’s Business’.  These are a selection of answers I got:

We are not experiencing a downturn, actually, we are looking at expanding our production capacity this year. Our company increases its revenue and profit each year.

Of course, we saw some decline due to the cost of living crisis, energy prices and general war issues in Ukraine. But nothing stopped us producing and shipping the products to our customers.

– Multinational Electronics Manufacturer

And

We are currently busy here at present, we are just re-starting after our 2-week shut down.

Our labels are mostly used on out of spec products and broken-down machinery which is something we do not really want a lot of, therefore that is why we don’t use that many labels, we like to keep these figures down.

– Multinational Metals company

And

Our volumes have actually been pretty stable this year against last year, but definitely down from where we were a couple of years ago. One thing we’re trying to put in place that is definitely having a knock on affect onto our suppliers is reducing inventory, where over the pandemic and Brexit we held a lot of strategic stock to mitigate risks, we are now trying to wind that down to a more responsible level, which obviously means to suppliers it does look like our consumption is down in certain areas!

– Multinational Electronics Manufacturer

And

We are experiencing a full capacity plus in our workload, which is hard work, but very welcome.

– Electrical engineering

And

As of yet we haven’t seen a decline in business, but I suppose we aren’t the best to gauge the industry off as we are a fairly new business who are still contacting and sampling new customers all the, like I said our business is going from strength to strength at the moment.

We have heard though that the construction industry as slowed down a little over the last few months, but only this week after speaking to some of our customers they are optimistic about the coming months as they have a lot more work booked in their diaries.

– Building Materials Manufacturer

And

Business is OK, but the poor summer weather hasn’t been good for sales of outdoor products.

– Bathrooms and furniture retailer

And

We are working at 100% plus at present. We have been busy now for a number of months. I know the CBI surveys say orders are still rather low, but things have improved over the last 12 months.

– Electrical engineering

And

I would say we are the reverse, probably around 30% up on last year and therefore so are our customers.

It took off at the beginning of the year and has kept at a pretty steady raised level so far.

We don’t do much in the FMCG area which may be the reason.

– Packaging Company

And

Our shipments are down, partly because we’ve lost a major customer due the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I’m also told we’ve “shot ourselves in the foot” with voting to leave the European Union, (although I voted remain, so my conscience is clear).

– Engineering