The Covid-19 pandemic had a huge impact on the daily lives of many people and, no doubt, also on many companies around the world.
One of the aspects we noticed most at S3 was the impossibility – for more than three years – of travelling between Europe and China, with all that this potentially implied for the smooth running of the company. Fortunately, our extensive experience with remote work made us fairly immune to these challenges, even to some extent it worked in our favour.
Finally, in 2023 China ‘reopened’, so recently Miguel Angel Burges, head of sourcing operations, was able to undertake a fantastic project follow-up trip with the local team in China.
The context of the S3 Newsletter does not allow for a detailed account of the intense agenda during the trip, but the pictures at least give an impression of what happened.
Two factors had an impact on the complexity of this particular travel schedule:
- The aforementioned pandemic and, consequently, the impossibility of travelling to China. Therefore, many visits were very overdue, i.e., it was time to once again visit several long-standing suppliers, to check-out their technical developments, etc.
- But it is also worth noting the fact that – despite the pandemic – the range of projects that S3 manages today is much wider (with even more new developments described below) and it was therefore important to visit several new suppliers in regions where we previously had little activity.
In short, an intense trip with many stops, meetings, negotiations, technical inspections, but also lunches, dinners and (a little) time for relaxation.
All perfectly coordinated by Sarah Zhi and Alice Wang, both from the Shanghai office.