Let’s Get the Industry Moving Again



Amy Leary, marketing manager at eBOM.com

This year has seen one of the worst financial crises since 1929, the Wall Street Crash. The economy has seen a rough start to 2020, with thanks to COVID-19 causing mass disruption for manufacturers globally and over 437,000 deaths within seven months. Same as all major industries, the electronics sector has been substantially affected by the virus in all divisions including events, manufacturing, supply chain and staffing. With COVID-19 grinding spending and production to halt, official data shows that China’s economy suffered a sharp decline of 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020, according to Business Leader. However, from this date onwards, the global economy looks as if it is starting to bounce back – along with the electronics industry.
Workplace Coming Back Together
Many organisations will have spent lockdown wisely to refurb facilities to ensure staff / customer safety and efficiency. Moving forward there will be more thought considered for social distancing within the workplace to ensure employees are safe and at respectable distances from colleagues. Strict measures will be introduced within all offices to prevent of COVDI19 spreading. Changes such as spacing desks, installing accessible sanitisers and marking floor marking will be highly popular within the workplace. Many large organisations such as supermarkets and manufacturing facilities have already implemented social distancing measures such as installing graphics on floors displaying the ‘two meters’ distance rule. However, many of the country’s small companies will not be viable unless two metre social distancing rules are relaxed, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has claimed. According to City A.M, Spain and Canada have retained two-metre restrictions in line with the UK, while others have taken a more lenient approach. France, China, and Denmark all have a one-metre rule, while Australia, Germany, and Italy have set their restriction at 1.5 metres.
Customer Interaction
ECIA’s Global Industry Practices Committee (GIPC) issued a document to provide areas for consideration and best practices for how manufacturers, distributors and manufacturer’s representatives in the electronic component industry can safely and effectively adapt their selling organizations in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the statements given were: Perform temperature checks the morning of any in-person meetings. Any employee exhibiting signs of illness including fever, dry cough, or shortness of breath should not travel or join in-person meetings. Frequent hand washing and sanitizing both prior to and post all face to face meetings.
“The issues involved with restarting in-person business meetings are significant and changing daily,” noted Don Elario, ECIA Vice President of Industry Practices. “We want to stay close to these important interactions and assist the channel for selling...

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