Lack of office supplies in American Enterprises

The global supply chain crisis triggered by the COVID-19 has already put American enterprises in a dilemma where offices are difficult to operate.

According to Reuters, the supply shortage in the United States has led to a serious shortage of daily office supplies. Many American companies said that there was a significant shortage of printer ink, printing paper and other necessities in corporate offices, and the shortage of light bulbs made it extremely difficult to maintain lighting in the office - which also caused great obstacles for employees to return to work.

Reuters reported that people had focused on the shortage of chips and building materials caused by the global supply chain crisis. Nowadays, the shortage of daily office supplies in the United States has also become a big problem. For example, when Sarah Becker, an anthropology professor at the University of California Riverside, returned to work in early November, she found that many light bulbs in the office had been burned out, but they had not been replaced. Moreover, when she tried to ask the logistics department to replace the bulb, she encountered some difficulties.

"In order to replace the burned out bulbs in my office, I was asked to estimate the percentage of the total number of office bulbs that need to be replaced." Becker roast, "I'm an anthropologist, not a mathematician!" Later, the school spokesman John Warren explained that the school's facilities department currently lacked lighting materials and lamps.

Becker's experience is not alone. Cheryl Cullen, who is in charge of facility management at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a multinational real estate service and investment management company, said that it took eight to 13 weeks more than usual to ensure the supply of general lighting equipment. "This is a major challenge as we consider how to get people back to work." "This is a really critical need and we take it for granted," Karen said

Karen said that if we insist on "finding a glimmer of hope" on this extremely troublesome facility management problem, it is that the construction managers have learned the lesson of material shortage caused by the outbreak of the epidemic last year, "they have hoarded a lot of toilet paper". According to us customs data, from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of this year, the import volume of glass bulbs for incandescent lamps decreased by 25%, which is also the first time that supply chain problems affect supply. Although the import volume of light bulbs has rebounded since then, it is still lower than the pre epidemic level.

In addition to light bulbs, anonymous sources from a large US commercial retail bank said that the bank's branches were in short supply of replacement parts for heating and air conditioning equipment. At a recent earnings conference call, Gree Smith, CEO of ODP Corp., a US office supplies company, said that the company was expected to be short of printer ink and toner by early 2022.

A copy of the e-mail obtained by Reuters also showed that a law firm in the Midwest asked employees to reduce printing in an e-mail last month because they lacked paper. Peter Lorentz, director of facilities and office operations at cadwalader wickersham & Taft LLP in New York City, said the firm was also experiencing a shortage of paper and delays in the purchase of office bulbs.

Lorenz pointed out that since mid October, as employees began to return to the office, the supply of office supplies has rebounded. "I think many suppliers have expanded their production scale, so they have quite a lot of inventory we need." However, on the whole, the shortage of office supplies is still one of the problems perplexing enterprises. The report pointed out that enterprises around the world have sounded the alarm on the supply problem, which has also pushed up the prices of various raw materials from chemicals to steel. This concern also dominated the previous earnings season - the proportion of CEOs mentioning the problem rose by 412%.


Source: observer web client