It is now clear that any deal the UK strikes with the EU at the end of the Brexit transition period will bring about dramatic change in trading relations. This will require huge shifts in the management of supply.
China and the west continue to have frosty relations and trade barriers are being erected.
The world is increasingly uncertain.
There will be winners
In the immediate aftermath of the UK coronavirus lockdown, Yeo Valley Farms, in common with many other retail food suppliers, saw their demand surge by 40%. For a £400m turnover business to increase production by this volume in a matter of weeks was no small achievement, and one that would have been impossible without Applegate when existing supply chain management solutions failed. This is a pattern we will see again and again in a highly disrupted 2021.
Increasing your preferred supplier list many times over is one option
Or Applegate can help. Our supplier network is made up of over 200k suppliers, knowledge of whom has been built up since our inception in 1997. This unique set of relationships, leveraged by AI, gives us an unparalleled ability to find suppliers for almost anything when you most need it, and check that you're getting the right price.
Why is this approach cheaper as well as more resilient?
By using Applegate's existing network supported by machine learning developed in collaboration with the University of Exeter, Applegate can offer automated supplier discovery. The automation means that this is dramatically cheaper than maintaining in-house resource to manage a large and diverse supply chain.
Applegate also gets you the current market price
Our automation also means that it's practical to run a competitive tendering process on purchases of relatively trivial amounts. By doing this, you are constantly asking suppliers to provide the best pricing the market currently offers.
For example, during the early stages of the pandemic not only were we able to supply PPE where incumbent sources failed, but we also uncovered dramatic overcharging – one group of care homes had for years been paying 700% over the prevailing price on Applegate for nitrile gloves.
Buying Better
As well as giving your supply chain extended reach and you confidence in the prices you're paying, Applegate also enables you to contribute more to your communities. Our suppliers are overwhelmingly UK SMEs, the small companies who employ the bulk of workers in the UK and pay their taxes.
Applegate's Covid-19 Supply Hub
Set up in March 2020, Applegate opened our system on a fully non-commercial basis to help get PPE and other related items to front line workers rapidly. We were able to support the distribution of over 100 million of items of PPE to NHS trusts, care homes, local authorities as well as essential businesses.