Supply chains losing £1.5bn per annum

Digital freight forwarder Zencargo’s analysis data has found that UK businesses are losing out on over £1.5 billion per annum due to supply chain inefficiencies and “Chinese whispers”.

The analysis of over 100 shipments from across a section of UK industries has shown businesses that trade internationally waste an average of over three hours per shipment. Time spent requesting and funnelling data back and forth between trade partners equates to over 100 million hours of time wasted per annum, or 50,000 employees’ annual working hours.

Brexit is also shown to impact this as shipments with non-EU countries involve on average 17 per cent more wasted time.

The study shows the need for supply chain innovation. Automating communication can help to deliver productivity gains of around £1.5 billion per annum says Zencargo.

“Technology is the main building block to bridge the productivity gap in the UK. Lack of communication harms productivity in any business, factor in complicated and often outdated supply chains and problems very quickly escalate,” said Zencargo CEO and co-founder Alex Hersham.

“Now is the time to invest and innovative in technology so we can truly compete on the global stage and at the same time benefit on a productivity level.”