Manufacturing: Consultant - Tom Legard
Manufacturing slump - As we feared?
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
My gut feeling that the Manufacturing sector was taking a battering have sadly been confirmed with publication of the latest figures from the ONS.
The Times reports today: “Sterling plunged further against the dollar after official figures revealed British manufacturing output unexpectedly fell in January at its sharpest monthly rate since last August. The Office for [...]
A cold start…
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Before Christmas I felt fairly optimistic that we were moving back towards positive territory – and sure enough, Q4 GDP figures confirmed exactly that. All good. The Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to a 15-year high in January. Even better.
So why has the manufacturing and engineering interim market gone rather quiet? A number of interims have [...]
Where are we now and what can we expect for 2010?
Monday, December 7th, 2009
I think it is fair to say that all the interim managers specialising in the manufacturing and engineering sectors were painfully aware that the Prime Minister’s optimistic view that the economy was returning to growth in Q3 was nonsense – to be fair, even the City analysts got it wrong with the fall in industrial [...]
Have we returned to growth?
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
It’s interesting talking to the interim community as it enables me to constantly monitor and gauge market activity and trends. In summary, the message I’m currently getting is that the market is patchy and mixed.
Yes, we have seen a substantial increase in activity since June that has translated into a new record in terms of [...]
Recovery or Green Shoots Wilting?
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
The latest data from the ONS leads me to ponder why is it that the marked increase in activity I’m experiencing, is at odds with the fact that factory gate prices fell at their fastest level since 2001 last month, and input prices continued to rise?
June and July have been particularly busy for me with [...]
A time for optimism
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
It’s always interesting to look back and review the year to date, and the effects of Government initiatives. The much trumpeted Credit Insurance scheme that I felt could potentially provide the catalyst to enable companies to continue trading through the credit crunch didn’t materialise – an interesting comment from an interim runs thus: ‘… we [...]
State Credit Insurance Guarantee – the Catalyst we’ve been waiting for?
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Finally some good news – aside from the excellent article in yesterdays Financial Times extolling the virtues of Interim Managers! – is another article in the Financial Times today announcing a centre piece of the coming Budget, to set up a state guarantee scheme to underpin supply-chain insurance. This will make a difference – and [...]
Green shoots
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
Three reports suggest the “green shoots of recovery” spotted by Baroness Vadera and nobody else in January, may actually be making an appearance – BDO Stoy Hayward’s latest survey indicates a return of confidence to the UK economy as firms accept the realities of a recession; a more gloomy report from KPMG suggests a “faint [...]
Engineering & Manufacturing - all Doom & Gloom?
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
The latest news to hit the headlines is a gloomy forecast suggesting that industry will not recover from the recession until the middle of 2010, with the manufacturing sector contracting by five per cent this year alone.
Is this the case or are there sectors which are less affected?
For sure, we know that the Automotive sector [...]
