Written by SEMMA CEO Vonda Fenwick.
Thank you to all our SEMMA members who have participated in our COVID IMPACT Surveys throughout 2020 – our first 2021 snapshot survey is out now, be sure to have your input! Click here to take survey.
Looking over our 2020 survey results from our March, May, August and October 2020 surveys, the impacts across revenue, supply chain, orders and staffing were significant.
A few points of note:
- As early as March 2020, members were reporting revenue loss (70% of respondents) and orders being pushed out or cancelled (66% of respondents).
- Reported revenue losses and declining orders continued to cause major issues, peaking in August lockdown period to 85% of respondents hit by falling revenues and 88% reporting lost orders.
- Revenue losses ranged from 0% through to 80% with and average around the 30%.
- In March too the staffing situation was bleak with 49% having already put off staff or gone to shorter working weeks.
- Predictions by members were that this would increase to 68%, however, the introduction of JobKeeper meant the staffing situation levelled at 48% of members reducing staffing levels.
- During the extended lockdown period, respondents who had reluctantly had to take action to reduce headcount and/or hours climbed to 55%.
- Supply chain impacts ranged through 35% to 48 % of respondents reporting issues with accessing materials.
When we collated the October/November data we were pleased to see that, with the exception of Supply Chain impacts (which had hit 59% of respondents) all of the other indicators had improved. It is important to note that the indicators were better but still not great, so it is clear that pre-Christmas 2020 there was still some real challenges for many of our members.
As we move into 2021 we are hearing anecdotally that most of our members are doing really well – some are reporting being twice as busy as normal which is great news. We are cautiously optimistic that our current survey will provide improved data once again to support the good news stories we are getting.
We hope your business is booming and please let us know through our current COVID survey – closing COB Friday 26 February.
