G&H: 2021 In Review, 2022 On The Horizon

Q: It’s fair to say that 2021 was not without its challenges – so what was the key to weathering the storm and even emerging stronger from it?

At G&H, it was about continuing to invest and innovate, continuing to operate safely, and reading the market carefully to position ourselves for future growth.

COVID, of course, made its presence felt. When it came into our world, it meant that we could no longer interact at work, visit clients or suppliers, and, in general, access to our innovation ecosystem was greatly reduced.

Adding to the general sense of strangeness and disruption, I recall that the drive to the factory to oversee anti-COVID measures during the early days of the pandemic was like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie.

But we stood up to the challenges and the business fared well as a result.

I remember the first thing we did was to set-up an exec-level team to quickly and efficiently respond to the developing situation. This included rapidly reconfiguring office and manufacturing space, dispersing desks and machinery, and moving communication and interaction onto a virtual footing.

We even reengineered manufacturing procedures, converting two-people processes into single-person operations. In one instance, this enabled us, despite the difficult circumstances, to hit a delivery schedule within a space programme that had very tight deadlines and a fixed launch window.

Via responses like these, the outcome was that throughout the pandemic we continued to supply key areas such as undersea communications, defense systems and medical devices.