After the literal shot in the arm of good news we received on Tuesday, let's bring us all back down to earth with a bump by discussing Brexit! 

I cannot pretend to understand all the ins and outs of what's going on at the moment. From what I can gather following Wednesday's dinner between Boris and Ursula, Sunday is now the deadline for a deal or no deal scenario. What happened to the oven ready deal, I'm not sure? Apparently that was for something else. And now this morning all the headlines are telling us to prepare for the strong possibility of a no deal. Sigh . . .

Anyway what isn't in doubt is that Brexit is upon us in one form or another and it will very much effect our working lives, just as much as it will every other facet of our society. 

Here at Service Dealer we have been hearing from senior members of the industry over the last few weeks about preparations our sector has been taking ahead of January 1st. One thing that should be stressed here of course, is that it's very difficult to prepare for something, when the parameters of that thing are not actually yet fully known!

Thankfully for dealers, the message that people who know way more about these sorts of things than I do, seem to be saying is that it's mostly a subject which manufacturers and suppliers, rather than dealers themselves, need to be overly concerned with.

On a video call with us a couple of weeks back, director of BAGMA Keith Christian said that if some dealers did have specific areas of concern themselves with import / export matters, the Association are putting together quite a lot of information for dealers on their website and are sending it out digitally, to steer the network in the right direction. 

The AEA's Ruth Bailey also told us on the same call that they have been conducting a series of webinars for their manufacturer members over recent weeks and months. These have been concerned with trying to distill the generic information that is available into what might be applicable to our industries. Ruth told us the these have been well supported and have generated positive feedback from those who attended.

Keith reiterated the point that it's the manufacturers who are more likely to feel the effects of Brexit than dealers this past week on Service Dealer founder, Chris Biddle's Inside Agri-Turf podcast. Keith told Chris, "We have had a lot of questions from dealers and many of them focus around how do people deal with import/export when they’re not used to it. Our advice at the moment is for them to seek out an agent that can handle it for them – because it can be a complicated process and it will add cost. 

"Bigger companies and manufacturers, they will have people internally that are dealing with this. Therefore a lot of the work, the dealers may need to know about, but don’t need to actually do anything about themselves – it’ll be done by their suppliers."

Also speaking to Chris was Service Dealer's agricultural machinery editor, Martin Rickatson. Martin spoke about the concerns he's picked up from the ag equipment industry lately, saying, "There's a terrific amount of uncertainty out there - particularly amongst those who import goods into the country. Those who rely on a regular supply of parts and wholegoods are very concerned. It is quite unnerving. A lot of people are running out of patience."

Preparations

Going back to Service Dealer's call, we heard various manufacturers tell us that extensive preparations have been taking place within their companies, to make sure they are as ready as possible. These include mundane but important matters such as changing labelling and getting new paperwork prepared in anticipation of the transition.

Obviously a key concern these past months for dealers and manufacturers alike, has been the supply of stock. We heard that already, pre-Brexit, there have been some major issues regarding logistics. The port at Felixstowe for example, was described by one importer as a "disaster" at the moment. They were currently re-routing via Southampton, they said, in an attempt to mitigate its impact. What this will be like post-Brexit, who knows?

To help lessen impact for themselves and their dealers, it seemed that suppliers who were able, were attempting to bring product in from outside of Europe. This it was felt could help with delays and certainly could help with new customs costs - because if we're under WTO rules, every package imported would now have a cost attached to it. Where it's currently zero, it was thought to be between £35 and £50 we were told. For companies who are receiving multiple small packages a day, these additional costs simply wouldn't be feasible. Companies may look into pooling orders in order to lessen these costs. Not ideal, but possibly necessary.

What we didn't really hear were tales of suppliers stockpiling warehouses ahead of Brexit, as we did last time it seemed a change was imminent. It wasn't clear exactly why this was? Once bitten perhaps? Or more likely, they've simply been dealing with many more immediately pressing matters this year!

None of us has a crystal ball, so it's very difficult to predict with any degree of certainty how Brexit is going to affect Service Dealer's readers. Hopefully with the preparations that have been able to take place, any negative impacts will be minimised. 

One thing's for sure, the first quarter of 2021 is going to be interesting!