Nowadays, it’s more important than ever to be aware of the ever-changing landscape of our industry and how it can affect your operations. Here, we have summarised three of the main challenges that we think are the most important for manufacturing and engineering businesses to consider as 2022 comes to a close.

Staying green

What isn’t as uncertain as our political landscape is the global race to Net Zero. Companies are becoming more obliged to reduce their carbon footprint wherever possible. For example, almost all European car manufacturers are now well underway in producing completely electric vehicle ranges, due mainly to governmental guidance to meet environmental targets.

Transitioning to renewable energy sources is an obvious step for manufacturing and engineering businesses but there are smaller steps that can be taken in the shorter term that can help. Careful co-ordination of logistics can reduce the number of deliveries which helps to reduce carbon footprint.

Understanding the intentions of stakeholders

It’s important to pay attention to the ever-changing needs of your stakeholders. The B2B buying process itself is becoming more complex and new technologies are being born at an increasing rate in the manufacturing industry. As new invention often requires new materials, your partnering businesses may be requesting different types of materials more often than before.

It’s good practice to stay in frequent communication with your stakeholders so you can prepare for any changes in trend before they happen.

Keeping up with digital change

We know that it can be hard to keep up with the ever-increasing rate of technological advancement in general, not just in business. However, businesses need to keep up to date with the hardware and software they use not only to make sure that they can stay integrated with external stakeholders, but also to ensure that their competitors don’t gain a technological advantage. This includes technologies such as new finance management and procurement management platforms.

Embracing new technologies in businesses isn’t always easy, as it usually comes with a steep learning curve for all staff members involved which can take time away from other business operations. The initial cost of adopting new technology may seem daunting, but missing out could prove even more costly in the long term.

What can your business do?

To ease the stresses that challenges in the macro environment may cause, your business should be making the most of new, streamlining systems to assist your operations. 

Especially useful for buyers when searching for new materials, systems like Matsource provide an easy way to manage all of your material purchases, all in one place. It doesn’t have to replace your existing processes, but it will make them more efficient. What’s more, Matsource can help to consolidate deliveries which also helps to reduce carbon footprint.

Matsource can also assist suppliers’ sales teams and reduce the time they spend on the road meeting clients, helping your business to meet Net Zero targets.

With a user interface that is easy to navigate, you’ll be up and running in no time at all once you’ve signed up. From here, you can act quickly and decisively to complete your orders and streamline your procurement.

If you have any questions about the platform, you can simply contact us for help here.