Jaguar Land Rover suppliers ‘face bankruptcy’ due to hack crisis

The last two weeks were terrible for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and the crisis in the automobile manufacturer did not show signs of ending.

The first cyber attack on September 1, forced the manufacturer to close the computer systems and to close the worldwide production lines.

Solihull, Halewood and Wolverhampton factories are expected to remain empty until Wednesday, as they continue to evaluate company damage.

JLR is thought to have lost at least 50 million pounds as a result of stopping. However, experts say that many of the most serious damage is made to the supplier network, which is small and medium -sized enterprises.

The government faces a call for a furlogh plan to establish widespread loss of business.

Aston University Business Economy Professor David Bailey told BBC: “Jaguar Land Rover’s supply chain has up to a quarter million people.

“So if it has an impact on this closing, we could see that companies are under the companies and that things have been lost.”

Under normal circumstances, JLR would expect to build more than 1,000 vehicles a day, many in the plants of the UK plants in Solihull and Halewood. Motors are mounted on the Wolverhampton site. The company also has large automobile factories in China and Slovakia and a smaller facility in India.

JLR said he deliberately closes IT networks to protect them from damage. However, since the production and parts supply systems were heavy automatic, these cars could not be built.

Sales have also been largely broken, but since then, temporary solutions have been implemented to allow dealers to operate.

Initially, the car manufacturer seemed sure that the problem could be solved quickly.

About two weeks later, it became very clear that restarting computer systems was far from a simple process. He already admitted that some data may have been seen or stolen and that he was working with the National Cyber ​​Security Center to investigate the incident.

Experts say that the cost of JLR will be between £ 5 million to £ 10 million per day, so it has already lost between £ 50 million to £ 100 million. However, by the end of March, the company implies that it has financial muscles to have a crisis that lasts weeks instead of months instead of months.

Since JLR has most main customers, most of them are sitting on the top of a supplier pyramid that is dependent on the automobile manufacturer.

These include a large number of small and medium -sized companies that do not have resources that will cope with a expanded deduction in their work.

“Some of them will break out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the bankruptcy,” Nissan said, “Some of them will break out.”

He believes that suppliers will significantly cut the number of personnel to keep the costs low.

Mr. Palmer says: “You pull back at the closing in the first week. You carry these losses.

“But then, you enter the second week, more information is available – then you cut hard. So layoffs are already or planned.”

In a smaller JLR supplier who prefers not to be named, a boss confirmed that his company fired 40 people with almost half of the labor force.

In the meantime, other companies continue to tell their employees to stay at home at the time they do not work to be a “bank”, and to be balanced against holidays or overtime at a later date.

It seems like a quick turn expectation to work.

A employee from a large supplier based in West Midlands said BBC did not expect to return to the shop floor until September 29th. They say hundreds of staff are told to stay at home.

When automotive companies are cut, temporary workers brought to meet the dense periods are usually the first.

Usually, there is a reluctance to get rid of permanent staff because they have skills that are difficult to change. However, if it dries a cash flow, there may be very few options.

Liam Byrne, a deputy of workers who chaired the Commons Business and Trade Committee, says that this is a need for government aid.

“What begins in some online systems is now fluctuating in the supply chain and threatens a cash flow crisis that can convert a short -term shock into long -term damage,” he says.

He continued: “Weakened a fundamental stone of our advanced production base with events beyond control”.

Union Unite called for the establishment of a Furlogh system to help automotive suppliers. This will involve the government’s subsidizing packages of payment packages and the burden of their employers when they cannot do their jobs.

“Thousands of people in the supply chain of JLR think that thousands of people in the supply chain of JLR now think that their work is immediately threatened because of a cyber attack,” UNITE Secretary General Sharon Graham says.

“Ministers need to act quickly and bring a furlogh plan to ensure that vital work and skills do not disappear as the JLR and the supply chain are on their way back.”

“We know the important impact of this on JLR and its suppliers, and I know it’s a worrying time for those affected.

He continued: “I met with the General Manager of JLR yesterday to discuss the effect of the incident. We also have a daily contact with our company and cyber experts to solve this problem.”