By general consensus 2009 and probably 2010 will be difficult years. It is clearly a troublesome time for retailers, manufacturers, construction and many other sectors.

The communications sector escaped 2008 relatively well without the loss of household names. However balance sheets of many UK suppliers, including some of the big names, were heavily hit. Those suppliers and vendors who were particularly exposed to the financial sector have seen a considerable downturn in income. That said, two of the major names in UK comms, Siemens and Ericsson were sold during 2008.

It is looking highly likely that the coming year will see a major consolidation in comms industry and the loss of a number of suppliers and products. This presents a considerable risk to customers. Those organisation that have invested heavily in comms equipment from manufacturers who may no longer exist face particular problems.

As a result of the higher risks, BBW have conducted an independent survey of the major system integrators and vendors in the UK. These are the suppliers who are providing installation, maintenance and support services to UK business on a day to day basis.

The evaluation was completed in two phases:

Financial Risk – On the basis of profitability, liquidity and gearing.

Commercial Risk – Vulnerability from overexposure to high risk sectors or from products which are at a high risk of being discontinued.

The results are concerning: Of the companies evaluated almost half rated as high risk of failure. We are continuing to update the risk analysis as new financial results and information becomes available.

For an evaluation of the risk of your suppliers please contact BBW. For existing BBW clients this is provided for FREE, for other organisations there is a charge of £250 plus VAT which includes a meeting to discuss the findings.

Please note: This service is only available to end user organisations and not to comms suppliers. Our findings will only be disclosed on a confidential basis as we do not want our analysis to make the problem worse. Our analysis is based on the information available at the time of the assessment and we would recommend that all organisations continue to carefully monitor the position of their suppliers.

For more information on our risk analysis service please Click Here.