What Does The Global Chip Shortage Mean For You?

What Does the Global Chip Shortage Mean for You?

Experts estimate that the current shortage of semiconductors could last for two years, greatly affecting the availability of new hardware. What can you do to mitigate the potential effects on your DD board?

You may have seen news recently about the growing shortage of semiconductors, a core component in business, and consumer hardware such as computers and smartphones. While you might not be in dire need of new technology right now, that doesn’t mean this won’t affect you eventually.

In order to maintain your DD board’s hardware lifecycles, you need to start planning now, well ahead of when your need for new hardware will become more pressing.

The State of the PC Industry

The available stock of desktop computers, laptops, and smartphones is already waning in light of the global shortage of semiconductors. This is primarily the result of two key factors:

• Increased Demand: At the start of this year, global semiconductor sales grew by 13.2% since the same time last year, to a total of $40 billion. The global adoption of work-from-home arrangements called for more laptops and smartphones, furthering increasing demand over the past year.
• International Relations: Tensions between the US and China prompted the latter to begin stockpiling valuable resources, including semiconductors.

Together, these factors have made it difficult to acquire new hardware, and it will only become more difficult to do so over the next two years.

This is a Global Issue Impacting Many Market Segments

This isn’t just a problem for computer users.  Having a hard time finding that truck or car you want?  You are not alone, as the global auto industry is one of the hardest hit by this issue with an expected $110 billion cost in revenue in 2021.

Don’t Try to Wait it Out — Start Planning Now

It’s important to think ahead in order to properly address an issue like this. It can be easy to assume that just because your organization has all the hardware it needs right now, that you don’t have to worry about a shortage at the moment.

However, you will require new hardware sooner or later, so it would be wise to “get in line” now as experts advise to expect supply issues to extend well into 2022.  Therefore, whoever is in charge of managing your hardware lifecycles should be able to tell you when a replacement is due, and if it’s within the next 12-18 months, the smart move would be to get that order in now, rather than worry about the delay when it becomes truly necessary.

This also likely means not only price increases, but a trend of higher pricing due to the growing demand and potential surge in that demand from those that have failed to properly plan in the past and/or don’t make effective adjustments to their existing plan to adapt to the current state of the market.  At the time of this article, we have already received notices from suppliers and vendors to expect price increases by July 1st.

This will most likely mean some adjustments to your lifecycle plan, as well as some flexibility, so be sure to take that into account, especially when it comes to budget planning, as well as Board and staff expectations.

Great Time to Consider Moving to a Private Cloud

High-demand items like servers are not immune to this issue.  Their replacement and updating should not be put on hold due to the reliability and security concerns involved, especially for mission-critical applications and the storing of sensitive ePHI data.  If you are still utilizing the older approach of on-premise servers, now is a really smart time to consider moving to the cloud or better yet, a Private Cloud specifically designed just for you and for the needs of Ohio’s County Boards, like what we offer in our private, in-house datacenter.

Why is This Important for DD Boards Like Yours?

While other types of organizations can often unilaterally decide to purchase new IT assets (via an executive team, or even just at the behest of the business owner), your DD board is subject to a more onerous process. You need to work within a budget and gain the right approval, which adds even more time to the process ahead of the industry’s delay.

That’s why you need to start strategizing now. GO Concepts will help — we can assess and determine the state of your current hardware, and help you plan ahead for when it will be replaced, mitigating as much of the delay as possible.

Get in touch with our team to get started and help ensure your team has what it needs to fulfill its mission.