Every six months GE undertakes a survey of senior executives working in the high tech manufacturing sector. Companies questioned in the research are in sectors including components engineering, materials manufacture, automotive component assembly, chemical manufacture, robotics and control systems and medical equipment manufacturing. RNA took part in the survey of UK high tech manufacturers in June of this year. Here are some findings to share.
- 76% of the 402 high tech manufacturers questioned said that they felt either very positive (31%) or fairly positive (46%) about their current business’s performance.
- 23% of those who expected the performance of their business to improve indicated increased exports as a reason for the positive outlook.
- Respondents see high material costs (76%), rising energy costs (66%) and the Eurozone crisis (55%) as obstacles to their growth.
- Access to capital is another issue that continues to divide the high tech manufacturing sector – 16% of respondents felt that bank funding is readily available.
- In term of the Eurozone crisis, nearly 50% of respondents said the crisis had led them to focus more new business efforts on developing markets, while 42% said the crisis meant they were also focusing more attention and efforts on the UK market.
- Engineering skills shortages were still an issue with almost 65% of those had been recruiting engineers over the last 12 months saying that they had had difficulty recruiting the right engineers, particularly for senior positions.
Source: GE ‘High Tech Manufacturing Index Report’, by ORB International June 2012
The Full report can be found here.