20/01/12
Recent devastating floods in Thailand – a major manufacturing source of hard disk drives – have resulted in shortages of key computer components.
This has had an impact on all suppliers in the technology sector, including Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Misco (UK) Ltd, in partnership with Lenovo, who were recently awarded national framework contracts for desktop and mobile computing, respectively.
Both HP and Lenovo are implementing business continuity plans to seek alternative sources of supply. However, this constraint on supply will have an impact on their ability to deliver products within the contractual service level agreements of both frameworks.
It is uncertain when the industry will fully recover its production capacity but we expect the current shortages to last until the end of the first calendar quarter of 2012, and potentially beyond.
We believe that a component supply shortage on this scale is unprecedented in the IT market in recent years. The situation is changing on a daily basis, however we expect lead times, in some cases, to be as much as six weeks. The current service level agreement standard is ten working days.
With this in mind, and as we approach the end of the financial year, we would encourage all organisations with a desktop or laptop requirement to place orders, or provide a likely forecast, as quickly as possible. There is no guarantee that orders placed at the beginning of March will be delivered and invoiced in advance of year end.
This is an extremely challenging situation to manage. The global constraint is outwith the direct control of both manufacturers, who are working hard to try and minimise the impact. For example, both have agreed to provide Solid State Drives (SSD) as an alternative. SSDs are in free supply, although organisations will have to consider the increased cost associated with SSDs.
Please be assured that we are in daily contact with both manufacturers, and will provide updates as and when they become available.
For more information, contact Gill McLeod.