Producer prices rise 0.8% year over year, 0.3% over June | Companies face longer times to destock warehouses | Drought conditions force ship backups at Panama Canal
Producer prices in July increased 0.8% year over year and 0.3% from the prior month, according to the Labor Department's latest producer price index. Excluding food and energy, prices at the producer level increased 2.7% from a year earlier and 0.3% from a month earlier. Services costs were a main driver of the increase, jumping 0.5% from the prior month.
US and European retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers that have stockpiled inventories over the past few years are finding it's taking longer to destock than expected due to stalling global demand and rising borrowing costs. "We had expected customers to draw down inventories around the middle of the year, but so far we see no signs of that happening. It may happen at the beginning of next year," said Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc.
There's currently a backlog of 154 ships waiting to travel through the drought-stricken Panama Canal and average wait times have increased to 21 days, while tightened pre-booking restrictions remain in effect until Aug. 21. Roughly 40% of US container traffic traverses through the canal each year, and one shipping expert predicts the conditions will "get worse before it gets better."
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Automated guided vehicle use among ports will increase 26% between 2022 and 2030 and top 370,000 global deployments by 2027, per ABI Research. While AGVs can help ports speed up the transport of containers, reaching full potential will require change management tactics to overcome the initial loss in productivity, according to ABI.
Cybersecurity awareness hasn't altered the "notable discrepancy between knowledge and action," and it's time for it to become part of the "new normal," just like changes integrated since the pandemic, Apu Pavithran of Hexnode writes. Procurement teams need to tackle vendor risk assessments, create and comply with risk policies, and ensure hardware and systems feature top-level security, Pavithran writes.
Businesses in the US, Canada and the UK with revenue between $500 million and $50 billion lost an average $82 million in 2022 due to supply chain disruptions, a 50% drop from 2021, and are still facing shortages and delivery challenges, according to risk management firm Interos. "The key takeaway is that people recognize it's better than it was, but it will not go back to the way that it was in 2019," says Tim White, Interos analyst.
At least six out of 10 marketers worry about their media spending distribution, Veritonic research found, and brand lift and market share are their main concerns. Drops in audience engagement with social media and TV, imprecise measurement tools for new platforms and the rise of audio contribute to uncertainty, analysts say.
TikTok's popularity will continue to grow with brands as will its influence on other platforms, social media-retail media network partnerships will strengthen to offer full-funnel options, and social platforms will push more into commerce to try to drive ad sales. These are among the paid social trends Nikki Gilliland sees, including more generative AI ad options. However, Zefr's Emma Lacey warns, "It's vital that marketers get behind initiatives that drive 'responsible' AI innovation to ensure the development ... is done in a safe way."
Splashy headlines about recent decisions from WeWork and Zoom have dominated the conversation around flexible work arrangements and suggest a decline, but the share of companies offering location flexibility increased from 51% in January to 61% in July, according to hybrid workforce management firm Scoop Technologies. "The narrative hasn't yet caught up with reality -- and the reality is large corporations globally are moving to a much more flexible approach to how they support their people," said Mark Dixon, CEO of IWG Plc, which owns coworking firm Regus.
The supply chain has grown too complex for manual processes to handle the growing influx of data, and automation can help increase visibility and reduce delays and disruptions, Matt McLarty of Boomi writes. McLarty outlines eight areas where supply chain automation can make a marked difference.
Whatever your wins and losses were for the week, whatever you did or you didn't do, when you come to this table, your value has nothing to do with that.
