There should be little doubt that government policies across the globe will play a critical role in stimulating, rebuilding and reshaping economies staggering from the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, which came at the time most were pushing forward with burgeoning sustainability and circularity efforts. Whether through ambitious “new deal” kinds of programmes, hands-off, […]
Chemical Connections
Chemical market whack-a-mole
Anyone ever play whack-a-mole? The image here comes from the 1990s, a time of ill-fitting T-shirts and no smartphones, so entertainment came from games such as whack-a-mole that sprung up (literally) to test our hand-eye coordination as well as our ability to deal with a new problem cropping up just as soon as we had […]
The US economy’s hall of mirrors
The US economic recovery from pandemic-induced shutdowns is about as disjointed an endeavour as I can recall. Recent data releases and surveys paint a quite jumbled picture. Take this week’s Beige Book release from the Federal Reserve, which distils inputs from regional Reserve bank surveys into the following summation: Employment – Up overall since falling […]
With so much hanging in the balance, let data light the way
The fourth quarter (Q4) of 2020 is the most consequential quarter in generations. It feels like hyperbole to type and sounds just as sensationalistic when said aloud, but not since Q4 1941, when the bombing of Pearl Harbor changed the US’ relationship with the rest of the globe for the next 80 years, has there […]
Short supply means high demand, right? Not always
Why the supply chain needs to sometimes look beyond simple supply-demand models to understand chemical markets Understanding why a particular chemical market is behaving in a certain way sometimes requires some sleuthing. For example, when you see headlines such as this on ICIS News, one naturally thinks they have found a market experiencing high demand […]
Remote-working growth yields food for thought for supply chain
What opportunities and challenges does sustained growth in remote working present to FMCGs and retailers? With economies in the throes of various stages of reopening, debate has begun surrounding when businesses dominated by white-collar workers bring their employees back into an office setting. Even in states such as Texas where I am located, many companies […]
Is your chemical market three-dimensional?
How can an understanding beyond the linear chemical chain bring value to sourcing teams? Back in the time when companies visited clients in person at their offices (i.e. the first week of March), I presented on market trends to a sourcing team that purchases a wide assortment of the raw materials ICIS covers. What made […]
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