As the pandemic hit the health sector head-on exposing the weaknesses of health and research facilities, the automotive industry on the other hand was drowning.
With most countries under lockdown to reduce the widespread of COVID-19, the automotive industry was bound to come to a standstill. The almost complete stop in the automobile movement seriously affected the economy of the automotive industry.
Though the hesitant lifting of the lockdown somewhat kicked the automotive industry back to life. Though not so swiftly as it sounds.
Meanwhile, every other organization was trying to survive. Including the partners in form of suppliers who still had to look for solutions for their businesses despite the state of standstill, the automotive sector had come to.
People being locked at home boosted the market for home appliances thus semiconductor chips which were being supplied for automobile manufacturing in numerous numbers were diverted to the home appliances sector.
However, with the bounce back of the automotive sector, it has become a challenge to provide semiconductor chips for both sectors. And this has resulted in a situation of mistrust between the automotive companies and their suppliers.
Suppliers and stakeholders play key roles in the success of a business. And it is very important to trust that you can always get the requirements you expect from your suppliers at the right time when you need them.
A supply chain is very important in industry and this calls for more reasons as to why this chain of suppliers should be trusted and there must be clear visibility in the operations between them and their clients.
Building trust is a very huge challenge to be tackled since trust is built with time as these two partners continue working together.
Trust can only be tested when challenges arise for instance the fact that the automotive industry is lacking semi-conductor chips from the suppliers indicates an initial lack of trust.
However, trust can slowly be built through visibility and exposure which are both components of transparency in a business.
This involves collecting all the required information from the suppliers in the supply chain. This information is then presented to all stakeholders in the company so that they can be approved under careful evaluation.
This increases visibility thus the level of trust between the suppliers and the company since they have a standard to work up to and maintain their reputation.
There is a need to form collaborations with suppliers in the company. This means that the automotive industry is required to be transparent with its suppliers, discuss with them their new goals and product trends and engage them in solution searching teams.
In return, transparency is also demanded from the suppliers as they have to provide information about the prices, quality, and competitiveness of the supplies out there.
Trust can also be built when the party in the wrong acknowledges their mistakes and takes responsibility for them instead of blaming the other party for it. This shows that the supplier or the company can be trusted and counted on in times of a crisis.
After the pandemic, automotive companies have found the need to look out for new supply chain practices with the need to build trust and visibility from the start with these suppliers.
