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FRP Breakfast Club: Manufacturing in focus

Thursday October 26, 2023

Exploring the emerging themes from our manufacturing breakfast event

To mark the launch of our latest report, which uncovered key insights from within the UK manufacturing industry, we hosted a breakfast event examining the findings alongside a panel of industry experts.

Leading the discussion was, Nick Neil-Boss, Partner and Head of Transformation UK at Eight Advisory, David Day, Corporate Development and M&A Specialist at Trillium Flow Technologies, Jasmeena Sandhu, Area Director – Manufacturing and Wholesale at Lloyds and our Restructuring Advisory Partner, David Hudson.

Core themes explored included sustainability, energy and global trends – with panellists examining how the sector can remain resilient, adaptable and versatile against today’s challenging economic backdrop.

With our report highlighting that the industry is leading the charge towards Net Zero, creating a new age of clean, sustainable manufacturing, the panellists focused in on this, emphasising the need for manufacturers to ensure they are setting Net Zero strategies to maintain a competitive edge.

The sector is responsible for a significant number of global greenhouse gas emissions, and so there’s a responsibility to tap into supply chains to improve this further – and with decarbonization becoming increasingly important – taking responsibility for this will be critical to the success of the industry.

Manufacturers have proven resilient amid a challenging landscape – but despite this, energy remains a key concern for the sectors’ decision makers – with 32% citing increasing energy costs as was one of the biggest risks to the sector. As the government withdraws the energy bill relief scheme, this continues to create uncertainty – passing on costs to higher levels as energy rates continue to rise is one of the ways manufacturers are responding to this.

Global trends and their challenges on UK manufacturers in particular were closely examined, namely supply chain issues and chip shortages – with the supply of specific raw materials used in semiconductor manufacturing flagged as a particular strain. Other trends explored, included the reduction of exports to the EU, and restrictions to trade, with some manufacturers looking to tap into different markets including the US and the Middle East to retain their market position.