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What’s the SCOOP – March 2021

TheReadingRoom

By Philip Spagnoli Stoten Founder of SCOOP

The story that dominated many of the discussions I shared in March was around the supply chain disruption caused by semiconductor shortages. It was novel for the disruption to not be directly related to the pandemic, but it isn’t a novelty to be talking about disruptions in the supply chain. In 2019 it was all about tariffs and trade wars, in 2020 it was, of course, the pandemic and this year we have a new disruption that seems set to last most of the year. Afterall, you can’t stand up a new semiconductor facility overnight.

What all of these disruptions have shone a spotlight upon is the need for supply chain security, the need for resilience and the need for agility. The technology industry has done exceptionally well through the pandemic, particularly high tech, but industries like EV (Electric Vehicles), space, avionics and even sustainable energy solutions are all at risk if the supply chain is not secure. Many, including governments, believe that supply chains need to be secured and in some cases onshored for many critical parts, components and materials, right back to raw materials like lithium for electric-car-batteries, titanium, silicon, and rare earth elements.

And that’s the SCOOP for this month, more soon!