At the peak of the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, buyers were extending payment terms from 30 days to as long as six months, while more shipping firms cancelled scheduled sailings as the amount of cargo declined.
Those were some of the recent challenges faced by companies in the supply chain industry, which saw a decline in business as global trade slowed down amid the pandemic, according to Cas Brentjens, vice-president at Infor’s Nexus unit in Asia-Pacific and Japan.
“There was a lot of pressure on suppliers in Asia, so there was a large demand for supply chain finance programmes,” Brentjens said. “Some brands also reacted quickly by setting up warehouses in Hong Kong or Singapore to support the direct-to-consumer business model.”
