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“Have a great holiday, and we’ll talk again in September!” I said to a European business associate. It was barely August, and his month-long vacation was scheduled to begin soon. We're not used to vacations lasting more than a few days in the United States, but for our international partners, several-weeks-long holidays can be the standard.
As foreign as it seems (no pun intended) to be out of contact with business associates for weeks at a time, this month-long holiday is sacrosanct to millions across the European continent. Here are five suggestions to make sure the month-long European holiday slowdown doesn’t slow your exporting business down.
1. Build your associates’ holidays into your calendar.
Get the particulars about your international partners and associates holiday and vacation schedules as soon as you can. Then, you can prioritize and plan in advance for their needs. Ask for as much information as you need from your clients, so you aren’t left wondering what’s going on with no response for a month or more.
Map out your business’s plan as far ahead as possible so you can prepare months in advance for the inevitable August slowdown
Other holidays may affect exporting, too. This blog post can help you identify those time periods.
Get the exact dates of anticipated holidays, so you can build in buffer periods for correspondence, bank routing, and actual shipping time.
Find out what lead times and information your associates need from you in order to process and send your orders in a timely fashion.
2. Know what you can expect while your associates are out of the office.
Once you know when your international associates will be out of office, it’s important to identify what you can expect from them and any of their associates whom you may interact with while during the holiday.
Ask who, if anyone, will be handling correspondence during the vacation time.
Plan for physical and technical delays. It may take longer to move goods from Point A to Point B during European holidays in August, as delivery, shipping and trucking companies may be understaffed. Remember, many industries slow down during this time period—not just one or two. Be prepared for the lag time.
If you’ve got a partner in a European country who is providing technical or customer support and will be leaving, work out an alternate arrangement to forward and handle calls that may be otherwise taken by a European office.
3. Emphasize production in June and July.
Don’t be shocked by a disastrous August turnout because of a failure to plan. To lessen the financial hit you could potentially take in August, ramp up production in the previous months. This is why the planning aspect is so important: by taking stock of how much you need to account for in August and then spreading that amount over the months previous, your business’s bottom line won’t suffer.
On the import side, make arrangements to acquire supplies prior to late July and August, so your company is well-stocked while your suppliers are on holiday. Keep in mind, you may not be able to order much at all in August, so plan to have enough stock to cover demand for the entire month of August and even into September.
4. Prepare for an August slump.
If you’re waiting for orders to come in August, you must take into consideration your production times, financing, and all the different issues related to receiving and processing export orders. Remember, you likely won’t get much business from Europe this month.
5. Anticipate an influx of business in September.
When your European associates come back to work, you’ll likely find yourself with an influx of orders or support, depending on your product. If your company provides technical support, you may have to anticipate a lull in August and a boom in September. Either way, plan your staffing and production accordingly so you can keep up with increased demand.
6. Take inventory of success and failures.
During and after the holiday cycle, make sure you’re keeping notes about what is working well and of any failures. With that information, you’ll be able to adjust and plan strategically for the next year far in advance.
Just try not to be too jealous when you picture your European partners vacationing—for an entire month—again next summer.
| Product Model | Inside Diameter | Outside Diameter | Thickness |
| PCMF081009.5B bearing | 8 | 10 | 9.5 |
| PCMF081005.5B bearing | 8 | 10 | 5.5 |