The market is nervous, Greece’s whole economy is being frantically propped up by other Eurozone countries and Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal are being forced into stringent cuts to try balance their economies and meet debt payments.
All these factors usually lead to companies cutting costs, not investing in new equipment, and laying off staff in preparation for bad times. But this doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment. There still seems to be some signs of confidence in UK and global outsourcing.
Personally, I still regularly receive press releases about UK companies investing in new equipment. Some recent examples are STI’s acquisition of a new Takaya flying probe system and OPS’ new 3D printer, both featured in our September magazine. I am also still receiving news of large contract wins, such as Briton’s seven figure contract to manufacture dataloggers for the rail industry, which was also featured in our September issue.
At the recent Defence and Security show, DSEi, the mood was upbeat and almost all of the news was very positive. Maybe this is because this particular area of the industry is sheltered from the global economy to some extent because of the reluctance of defence contractors to outsource abroad to maximise security, but the people I was talking to were positive about other industry sectors, especially automotive and communications.
From a global perspective, I have the latest comment from Annand and Susan in India and the US respectively and they seem generally positive about the state of outsourcing globally, if not on some other factors. You can read these two articles over the next month in our regular EM&T newsletter.
There could also be some longer-term positive news in Foxconn’s announcement that it is to vastly increase its robot workforce in the next few years. As I stated in my EM&T newsletter leader, it is possible this could negate a large proportion of the labour costs that have led to OEMs looking to the Far East for outsourcing requirements.
So to me, it seems despite the economic indicators all pointing in the one direction, outsourcing is looking pretty healthy for most. Hopefully this trend continues through these uncertain times. I’d love to hear your views. You can email me on