Think “Low Cost Supplier” not “Low Cost Country”

I’ve been on Internet radio talking recently talking about the change at the top of global procurement at GM — and what that means to the huge push they had been making to source from China and other low-cost countries.
This excerpt from a column by an ADR International colleague based in Prague, Czech Republic makes a good point about that. Here’s the excerpt and a link:

“Experience shows a clear erosion of the traditional split between low-cost and high-cost countries, as many suppliers in emerging countries are unable to deliver benefits because of poor performance and productivity and high logistics costs.

Buyers are therefore seeking companies which offer the most advantageous relationships, whether they are located in an emerging region or, for example, Western Europe.

Global companies such as Unilever, for example, no longer focus on regions or countries. Instead they use a database of vendors capable of supplying their global network for best total costs no matter where the vendors are located.

Of course, this requires active and capable sourcing resourcing all around the world.

It should be borne in mind that low-cost status does not last forever. Every country wants to move from being regarded as emerging to being seen as developed. Some countries, South Korea, Singapore or some central-European nations, for example, have already achieved this.

The US has benefited from a weakening dollar for a couple of years, while Europe became very expensive with its Euro. In recent months currency rates are moving even more into foreground. Economic crises have caused a substantial fall in the value of some currencies such as the UK pound and some central-European currencies.

Nevertheless this brings unexpected opportunities. Offerings that appeared lucrative a month ago may mean a loss today or next month.
The global economic downturn has brought the factors of trust and reliability into focus. The ability to deliver goods and the ability to pay have increased the need for trust and risk mitigation.

Such proven business relationships will last even when the economy recovers, and risk management with those companies which have proved they can deliver the goods will be more important in the future.”
Robert Sobcak, ADR International, Prague.

Link: Think Company, Not Country

Riding the economic Tsunami

Darwin probably said it best – the fittest will survive. That’s also the assessment of my colleague in the UK, Robin Jackson, CEO of ADR International. If you haven’t seen ADR’s newsletter, this is what he had to say:

“The business environment has changed fundamentally and we will have to look back to the great depression of the 1930s, the collapse of South American economies in the 1970s and 1980s and Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990s to draw lessons.

In this radically changed environment it is vital for the survival of businesses for procurement leaders to consider new ways of handling these challenges and develop new offensive and defensive sourcing strategies.

Remember this is a once-in-a-century readjustment of prices. Only if you are bold and act speedily will your business survive. Your competitors will be doing it and to survive you will need to do it too.

It’s time to call in the favours – if ever there was a time for strategic co-operation with key suppliers, this is it. If they don’t live up to their part of the strategic partnership billing, move swiftly to find alternative partners. Leverage your strategic supplier relationships. Be demanding and move rapidly.

Conserve your cash. Even if your business can borrow it is more expensive to do so now. So extend payment terms to the maximum without damaging the viability of your suppliers.

If you receive a price increase request then the supplier must be having a joke. With basic commodities falling in price by 40 per cent or more (a barrel of oil is down 70 per cent) how can any supplier claim their input costs are increasing? Any increases caused by the fall in the value of currency will be more than offset by the collapse in input prices.

Your defensive strategy should include preparing now for possible disruption of your supply chain. Disruption can result from suppliers going bankrupt, economic meltdown in countries, significant currency fluctuations and political unrest, so plan carefully how your business will manage it by developing detailed countermeasures.

In China the number of bankruptcies has increased significantly and this has led to an increase in social instability – imagine the chaos if a new political regime closed China’s borders to the West again, or Russia switched off the gas.

We need more than ever to be aware of currency movements and take them into account in all our procurement decisions. Given the volatility now inherent in the world economy, today’s low-cost destination of choice could be tomorrow’s high-cost country to avoid.

In this climate, it almost certainly makes sense to shorten your supply chain to reduce risk and vulnerability, so local sourcing could become the new must-do procurement strategy to replace the obsession with low-cost country sourcing of recent years.


These are unprecedented times. So our strategy for 2009 should be: be bold, be brave, act swiftly and be ruthless. Develop new offensive and defensive ideas and ways of working. Only then will you and your business have a chance to survive this economic tsunami.”

Thanks, Robin. We should all bookmark this. Post it on our desktops and build it into our work plan every day for 2009.

Find more articles by Robin and others at our ADI International web site. 

 

China Smog

We’ve been helping our clients source from China for years, but recent developments leave some uncertainties surrounding China as a first choice for sourcing manufactured goods.

The obvious first issue that has us reworking calculations for our clients is fuel prices. They are a significant part of shipping costs – regardless of the mode of transportation. Longer routes are clearly more susceptible to significant price increases. Transportation costs in some cases must be factored in twice – once for moving raw material to the factory and a second time for shipping the manufactured product to your loading dock or customer. When we advise clients about strategic purchasing decisions we ask them to look all the way back through their supply chain, just so they can assess factors such as that.

A second issue coming from Chinese sourcing is risk – not just from the longer travel times or distances from China — but the potential for disruptions coming from disclosures of unsafe goods or manufacturing practices. Major companies that should have done better due diligence have been burned.

Even with these cautions, China still has a tremendous attraction for buyers. The difference in the cost of labor is still striking, and in many kinds of manufacturing Chinese technology is state-of-the-art. But like good investors who review their portfolios every quarter, purchasers ought to review their cost and risk calculations whenever there are significant changes in their supply chain. That is certainly the case right now.

If your firm is considering sourcing in China, it is essential that you look for a partner with resources on the ground in Asia and the United States to help manage the relationships and risks. The cost of a trusted representative in China is likely to have a quick payoff in several key areas:

·      Understanding the protocols of Chinese business

·      Inspecting manufacturing sites

·      Ensuring that your supplier meets your social responsibility and ethics compliance requirements

·      Providing technical and logistics support to assure that your specifications are understood, met and delivered to your location without incident

·      Monitoring market conditions to make sure changes such as those we are seeing now continued to be factored into your sourcing decisions.

Many businesses rely on trading companies to represent them overseas, however, considering what’s at stake, a sourcing agent with a broad reach and on-the-ground resources looking after your interests is generally a better bet.  The cost of bringing in a qualified partner may offset some savings in year one, but it’s money well spent to deliver long term results.

$100 Per Barrel Oil

They may only be bumping up against it now, but oil prices will soon hit and exceed $100 per barrel, and prices aren’t likely to drop substantially for the forseeable future. The reason for that is summed up in two countries: China and India.

Increased competition for the scarce oil from developing nations such as India and China are likely to keep the pressure on the price of oil for some time. Smart buyers who have watched the price go up have already created category strategies and relationships with their supply chain to manage the higher costs. Those who have not may be forced to look for strategic alternatives in energy and some raw materials in order to survive.

The $100 benchmark will significantly impact the Michigan, U.S. and global economies. The triple-digit price has a huge psychological impact that will affect consumers as well as every buyer throughout the supply chains that create consumer products. If they haven’t paid enough attention to the rising cost of fuel, the $100 mark is a loud wakeup call.

Buyers in every industry will be making cost containment an even higher priority than it has been, because oil provides more than just energy and fuel for shipping products. Industrial buyers will be encountering significantly higher costs for freight, plastics, chemicals, steel and travel.

About ADR North America

 

ADR North America, based in Ann Arbor has been a leader in purchasing consultancy for more than twenty years.

ADR North America is part of a global group of consultants – ADR International — in Australia, North America, South Africa and the United Kingdom who have worked with over 200 clients in more than 50 countries. Among our clients are many of the world’s largest companies. Our consultants are recognized experts in the field and have authored hundreds of articles and commentaries in professional journals.

Our products and consultancy services have proven their ability to transform global company purchasing operations. We can start with innovative baseline assessments, move on to create and implement purchasing category strategies, and finish by developing staff skills to bring increasing value to a company. As appropriate, our consultants can deliver all or any part of a purchasing transformation. In short, ADR is purchasing knowledge, applied.

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