Mid-Year Business Considerations & Planning Ahead
We recently crossed the halfway point for 2017. At this time of year, you are reflecting on your strategic plans and getting ready to make more decisions that will affect the remainder of 2017 and the years that follow. Some of these decisions are on capital expenditures. Should we expand? Do we need to take out a loan or will we have enough cash? Do we have the capacity to meet our forecasted demand? The list of questions goes on and on.
At Insta-Pro, we deal with these same questions. As an equipment manufacturer, I want to give you some insight on what we typically see this time of year. From November 23rd through the end of the year, there are several holidays and many people are out of office, making the second half of the year a much shorter time period. Given this, it is a good idea to target your equipment to ship on December 1st, so it arrives to you around January 15th. Given an approximate lead time of 10-12 weeks, you would need to purchase by September 1st for that goal to be accomplished.
Equipment lead times vary because of many factors: order volume, type of equipment and time of year, making it a good idea to leave yourself a month or so as a buffer. In my experience with my customers, I have seen seaport strikes, weather, customs issues, etc. that can add time between the payment of the equipment to actually having it in your hands. If you are thinking about or are ready to order equipment, my suggestion to you is to give yourself plenty of time, stay in contact with your sales rep on how the construction of the equipment is going and when the expected ship date is, and have your customs documents pre-approved, so when the container arrives it can go right on through to your facility.
It may seem like there is a long time to go until the end of the year, but it will sneak up on you quicker than you realize. I suggest taking a look at next year’s plans now to avoid being rushed at the end of the year and potentially getting off to a slow start in 2018. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send us a message.
