Pointing Manufacturers toward a New Path to Profits in a Slow Economy

Are layoffs and facility closures the best way to deal with a slowing economy? Kevin Krot, Head of Mobility and Industrial Products at SGS Maine Pointe, offers alternative advice in a ManufacturingDIVE article on “How manufacturers can navigate a slowing economy.”

Krot states that leaders must understand, “What [are] your core capabilities? Where can you leverage that elsewhere?” Manufacturers may be able to use workers and facilities in industries that they haven’t considered before. According to Krot, those industries include aerospace, defense, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Labor shortages have hit the aerospace and defense contractors especially hard.

Under those circumstances, manufacturers might be best served, not by reducing their own labor forces and closing facilities, but by diversification. They can find industries with high demand and set a new direction for their under-utilized resources.

The article also tackled the question of supply chain disruptions. Manufacturers who are willing to diversify may find themselves as key suppliers in alternative industries.

Krot assures manufacturers that a lot of industries right now have high demand. They may need help in identifying those industries, but they will gain in new markets, agility, ability to adapt to changing market conditions, and future growth.