Why does a shortage of chips affect how I plan my IT requirements?

The shortage of computer chips was an initial effect of lockdowns and factory shutdowns because of COVID-19 last year, and production is now back to normal.  However, the way in which we use IT and the fundamental way we all now work has changed and looks likely to stay in some form in our future.  The increase in demand for laptops and devices to help us work from home has therefore increased the number of chips required to produce these products and currently demand is higher than the supply.

What we are seeing here at MJD is common IT networking components are going out of stock and the incoming stock’s lead time is much longer than what we would usually have seen.  To the point where the lead times can be a couple of months.

What does this mean for you?  The more advance warning of IT requirements that you can give us the better chance we have of successfully achieving the desired outcome ready for when you need it.  Because our usual options may be low stock or a long lead time it will mean we need to review and work with the stock available to ensure that we can still provide you with a fit for purpose and effective IT solution.  It also means that IT components which need chips will increase in price, so again this means it is important to involve us from the beginning of your plans so we can give you current prices to allow you to determine the total cost of the project for budgeting requirements.

You may be thinking, as restrictions ease and we all get setup with the IT hardware we require to work in our “new normal” patterns that this will ease and become okay.  However, the chip industry is advising that this problem could take them a few years to resolve completely due to the time taken to expand through building new factories and getting these tested and qualified for production to begin.  This is why we wanted to warn our clients and to help you understand that any major IT projects you wish to carry out, consider getting in touch with us as early as possible so that we can plan with you and advise any components lead times at that point so we can make your IT work for YOU.