Remote Work and Reconfigured Supply Chains: COVID-19 Effect

Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry” will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs reshaping the world of manufacturing and industrial markets. Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the digital-industrial world. These include how we design, source and manufacture products. And also the new ways in which industrial companies are getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.

Episode 12

In this episode: Tony says about 350 of Thomas are now working remotely – and 75 independent sales reps that they call certified Thomas Partners. He says he’s been amazed to watch his company make that transition and he is proud of his people that got him there. He says these are anxiety producing times, and he’s amazed at how calm people stayed.

Tony says that Thomas started to produce some surveys. The first wave Thomas sampled 750 companies, and the second wave they sampled 1,400. The first wave of the study 60% of respondents said they were seeing an impact on the virus in the near future. Second wave, 45% of respondents said they were seeing an impact. That means that some sources in China are coming back online.

Tony says that auto companies, electronics companies, aerospace companies, and others have their supply chains disrupted. He says you may see an acceleration of re-shoring in the U.S.

I tell Tony that when I was in ninth grade I had a coach that told us, “adversity builds character.” But he said no, “adversity reveals character.”

Tony says there’s a lot of people that understand that they can be very productive and live a high quality of life without the strain of commuting. He says that it’s pretty easy to draw a vector point and to see a higher percentage of remote workers. Which means empty offices.

Tony says to stay calm while we fly through some turbulence. He says we’re watching how customers and prospects are reaching out to Thomas and looking at the dashboard of their products and services. Tony says they were chatting via Slack today, and seeing users request a feature where a supplier would show lead times for products and services – right on the supplier profile.

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