Supply Chain Issues and Industry Trends
It’s hard to believe that we’re almost halfway through 2022. The last couple of years have certainly presented unique challenges. It’s great to see that many of our customers have finally returned to their offices.
We’re optimistic about what the next few years will bring. We’re adding staff to our sales, service, and administrative teams to prepare for the growth that we anticipate. The continued consolidation in our industry has reduced the number of independent dealers in New England and while the branches of the manufacturers are well-positioned to handle enterprise accounts, they struggle in the small-to-midsize business space.
The supply chain issues that began in 2021 look to continue through the end of 2022 at the very least. Most manufacturers are in a severe backorder situation with new inventory, and some are also struggling significantly with toner shipments. We recently signed on a new client because they were unable to operate their leased equipment because the toner was unavailable.
NBM has already advanced our Q3 and Q4 purchase orders with our manufacturers to ensure that we have inventory available for our customers. We currently have a six-month supply on hand for departmental MFPs and accessories.
Availability for single-function printers and desktop MFPs is not as good as the departmental machines. We have inventory on hand for some models while others are on backorder until August or September. We would encourage our customers to order in advance for the desktop units. We are facing the same challenge with wide-format printers and MFD’s but have some inventory on hand as backorders are taking up to 90 days to ship.
The more positive news is that the chip shortages and shipping delays look to improve dramatically by the end of the year so we anticipate that it will be business as usual relative to inventory in 2023. We’re grateful to our customers for helping us navigate the past two years and are looking forward to better days ahead.