There’s a long-lasting impact of the pandemic across all sectors: automative, game consoles, network switches, and Wi-Fi access points. All electronics. The global shortage of semiconductor chips is putting a tight strain on supply and driving up the demand.
If you’ve asked for a quote on network equipment and have gotten a long lead time, that is because of COVID-19 disrupting the supply chain and impacting processor plants. Today, there’s a limited supply of semiconductors.
The bad news is that it is likely to extend into 2022. Cisco estimates a 12 to 18-month impact on availability. We see more and more 90+ days lead time for switches, firewalls, and access points. Resellers are updated weekly on lead times.
How Are You Impacted
The chip shortage will impact your 2021 and 2022 project timelines. The supply and demand issue will increase network equipment prices and availability.
During Cisco’s fiscal Q3 2021 earnings call, CEO Chuck Robbins revealed that the company had decided to increase the price of certain products. Which ones will have price increases? Most likely, Wi-Fi products, maybe even the whole portfolio.
The consequences of improper planning and design will lead to purchasing of hardware and software at higher costs. In this hard time Cisco customers and resellers are looking for alternatives. Are you considering to find new suppliers too? We put together some tips for you to help:
Very basic, but important: make sure that you know what you buy (new, clean serial or refurbished / used):
New: big distributors and partners are purchasing huge amounts of equipment all around the world and a lot of times, they cannot sell all of them, so they are avaiable to buy. Of course, you can put official Cisco smartnet on these products.
Clean serial: these equipment have never been registered at Cisco, so you can put official Cisco smartnet on them, however, it's not guaranteed that they were never used.
Refurbished: these equipment have been used, most of them have little scratches and you can have difficulties putting official Cisco smartnet on them
Always ask for information on the products, like lead times, serial numbers or even pictures.
Try to get a 10 day payment term, so you are able to test the equipment before paying.
In case you are interested in a quote, let us know: info@server-parts.eu.