Supply Knowledge (tm)

China's Curbs on Tech

China's Curbs on Tech Purchases http://ping.fm/oc5rC

Global Supply Chain: How Many Process Steps

Global Supply Chain: How Many Process Steps http://ping.fm/gUHgR

Price Negotiation

Price Negotiation http://ping.fm/ljQ0R

The Need For Product Sourcing

The Need For Product Sourcing http://ping.fm/pnqti

A Chinese Spend Management Vendor? Will CDC Software Target the Buy-Side?

 http://ping.fm/EEpEy > Spend Matters, LP

Combating Counterfeiters in the Global Supply Chain ...

SupplyChainNetwork.com > Combating Counterfeiters in the Global Supply Chain ... http://ping.fm/Df2Uk

Best Business Books 2009: Globalization

JPG > http://ping.fm/YC29i

Evolution of Low Cost Country Sourcing

Evolution of Low Cost Country Sourcing http://ping.fm/RAOpY

China's supply chain value - The Global View | Blog on Purchasing

I recently attended the ISM China conference, which was attended by about 200 supply chain professionals from companies like IBM, Cooper Industries, Delphi, Alcoa, Home Depot, BP, Emerson, Cardinal Health and Eaton.

The major theme of the conference was about China’s supply chain value. The general consensus at the conference was that sourcing from China was necessary and still an advantage.

Data presented from a survey 240 senior procurement professionals said 25% thought China was still the best low-cost country for sourcing, followed by the Czech Republic at 21%, Hungary at 10% and Poland /India at 9%. Other data showed that labor rates have increased in China. However, China, India and other Southeast Asian countries still have lower labor rates than Europe and other Asia regions.

via www.purchasing.com

Managing Risk for High Performance in Extraordinary Times: Report on the Accenture 2009 Global Risk Management Study

The Accenture 2009 Global Risk Management Study was designed to help understand the issues around enterprise risk management in the current economic downturn. Based on this research and its experience in helping companies improve their risk management functions, Accenture outlines eight primary lessons to be drawn—and the most important keys to achieving high performance through an improved risk management function.

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Top Supply Chain Risks Today

Globalization has brought benefits to the world economy by expanding the choices companies have in building their supply networks. It has also brought new degrees of risk to business at many levels.

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Supply Chain Megatrends

Given these challenges, executives (thankfully) no longer equate the Supply Chain Management discipline as simply sourcing materials at the lowest cost. Microsoft Industry and Supply Chain Solution Management teams, in surveying its customers, ISV and SI partners, and consulting with independent Industry Analysts has identified the following Supply Chain investment Megatrends..

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Financial failure tops supply chain risks

Global risk advisers, Aon and strategic business partner, State of Flux, have published the 2009 Risk in 21st Century Supply Chain survey, in which 75% of respondents site financial failure as the greatest risk to their supply chain. Other key risks identified by 43% of firms are physical damage at a supplier’s facility and 29% highlight data security.

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Social SciencesEconomics and Cost Analysis Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Globalization and Security

Globalization-the integration of the political, economic and cultural activities of geographically and/or nationally separated peoples-is not a discernible event or challenge, is not new, but it is accelerating. More importantly, globalization is largely irresistible. Thus, globalization is not a policy option, but a fact to which policymakers must adapt. Globalization has accelerated as a result of many positive factors, the most notable of which include: the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War; the spread of capitalism and free trade; more rapid and global capital flows and more liberal financial markets; the liberalization of communications; international academic and scientific collaboration; and faster and more efficient forms of transportation. At the core of accelerated global integration-at once its principal cause and consequence-is the information revolution, which is knocking down once-formidable barriers of physical distance, blurring national boundaries and creating cross-border communities of all types.

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From Asian to Global Financial Crisis

From Asian to Global Financial Crisis to be published by Cambridge University Press in the autumn will demonstrate, the global supply chain is a network and the Asian and current financial crises are in effect network crises. First of all, Asian manufacturers learned that Metcalfe’s Law works through the cluster and economies of scale effect. Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of the network is exponentially related to the number of users. In their search for scale, Japanese, South Korean and today Chinese firms have expanded at almost any cost, very often through high leverage, incurring huge risks.

From Asian to Global Financial Crisis: An Asian Regulator's View of Unfettered Finance in the 1990s and 2000s

The global value chain

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Panjiva SinoScreen Reduces Supply Chain Risk

For purchasing professionals working with vendors in China, a new innovative solution will help to reduce their company's supply chain risk. Panjiva, the online resource for information on suppliers around...

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Offshore or Near-shore?

In order to continue providing up-to-the moment authoritative coverage of the global supply chain, World Trade has partnered with the well respected consulting firm Grant Thornton to survey sourcing trends within leading U.S. manufacturing companies.

In the following excerpt on sourcing practices and trends, Grant Thornton reports that a substantial number of the three-quarters of major U.S. companies currently sourcing internationally have made changes or are planning to make changes to alter supply chains to source closer to home. These changes are being driven by considerations other than price, such as supply chain resiliency and responsiveness, suggesting the many more—and more complex—variables entering into supply chain decisions.  

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Supply chain execs fear protectionism could lead to global depression

More than 80 percent of supply chain managers recently polled at manufacturing companies involved in international trade expressed concern that growing protectionism could sink the world into a global depression. Respondents also feared the current economic downturn could result in a prolonged reversal of world trade. On a somewhat brighter note, three-quarters of them believed the recession would not last more than another 12 months.

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Risk a Greater Problem Now in Global Sourcing

Concepts:

supply chain, management, business, risk, logistics, resources, industry, Webcasts, sourcing, high-tech, China, Blogs, Construction, Leadership.

Summary:

Risk management takes on new meaning for supply chain managers doing business overseas during a global recession, said key industry analysts.

Sourcing from low-wage countries like China seemed like such a logical idea before the world's economy went south, said C.J. Wehlage, research director, AMR, Research.

But with demand continuing to slacken, logistics decision-makers are now more concerned with maintaining the integrity of their pipeline.

"The failure of some suppliers in China has become an issue," he said.  China is the region that contributes the most risk to global supply chains, that study concluded.

"And for high-tech companies requiring more solutions in a down economy, the complexity of reliable sourcing is even more intense," he said.

A similar view was shared by Keith Baranowski, vice president, SAP America, who said that "demand management" was back in vogue with high-tech executives.

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Outsource supply chain to survive downturn

Concepts:

manufacturers, ZDNet, Asia, supply chain, business, costs, reports, economists, logistics, community, capital investments, lean, technology, industry, management.

Summary:

This remedy will prove particularly useful for manufacturers that are able to outsource their supply chain and farm out capital costs to service providers.

Saj Kumar, vice president of SAP Asia's discrete manufacturing industry solutions group, said manufacturers in Asia, especially those producing high-tech products and automobiles, have been badly affected primarily because the market for their goods is U.S.-centric.

Agreeing, Loh told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail that companies can outsource supply chain management (SCM) and make strategic use of SCM applications that automate transactions and information flow, and free resources to better meet fluctuating market needs.

"Apart from improving efficiencies in managing exchange of information, employing SCM helps companies remain flexible and responsive to the demands of the changing environment, which are key to survival in a recession climate," Loh said.

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Cengage - Decision Sciences - Instructor Product Details Page - Operations and Supply Chain Management for the 21st Century (0618749330)

Operations and Supply Chain Management for the 21st Century, 1st Edition

Ken Boyer - Ohio State University

Rohit Verma - Cornell University

ISBN-10: 0618749330  ISBN-13: 9780618749331

592 Pages   Casebound

© 2010     Published

Cengage - Decision Sciences - Instructor Product Details Page - Operations and Supply Chain Management for the 21st Century (0618749330)

Order Desk

How to Manage A Sustainable Global Supply Chain

"How to Manage a Sustainable Global Supply Chain" was the topic explored by IBM's Vice President of Supply and Chief Procurement Officer Mr. John M. Paterson during today's Executive Forum hosted by CEIBS. Students from the MBA and Executive EMBA programmes gathered to hear Mr. Patterson's views on the topic within the context of current environmental initiatives.

www.exduco.net - Graduate schools and programs guide

HP (NYSE:HPQ) publishes Global Citizenship Performance & Goals

HP issued its annual Global Citizenship Report, which describes the company’s policies, programs, performance and goals for fiscal year 2008. The comprehensive web-based report is available at www.hp.com/go/report.

A shorter version of the report, highlighting insights and best practices to help enterprise and public sector customers, is available at www.hp.com/go/customer.

Among the focus areas detailed in the report are ethics and compliance, human rights and labor practices, environmental sustainability, privacy and social investment. Notable accomplishments include:

HP became the first IT company to report the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its product manufacturing by publishing the emissions attributed to its first-tier suppliers.

In 2008, HP recovered for reuse 3.5 million hardware units weighing 75 million pounds (34,000 metric tonnes) and increased its recycling volume to 265 million pounds (120,000 metric tonnes) globally.

HP announced an industry-first engineering breakthrough that uses recycled content - from cartridges returned through the HP Planet Partners return and recycling program and materials such as plastic water bottles - in manufacturing new Original HP inkjet cartridges.

In 2008, HP audited 142 of its suppliers at 246 sites and found a significant reduction in incidences of nonconformance in areas such as nondiscrimination practices and worker health and safety.

HP continued implementation of its privacy accountability model, which goes beyond compliance with laws and industry norms to also take into account HP values and customer expectations and risks to its business and that of its customers.

ReportAlert.info - Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ)

Buyers Beware!

With economic uncertainty shaking the foundation of the global supply chain, a tactical response is only natural. But buyers still need to think strategically about their sourcing decisions to ensure long-term results.

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Duty Rate Calculator for Managing Global Tariffs

TradeBeam has created a Duty Rate Calculator, software designed to help companies manage their global tariff rates. The application provides access to current and future duty rates, both general and preferential. It collects global regulatory information to supply...

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Methods to Do Online Business Through China Outsourcing

The potential to lead in international trade is a issue in China outsourcing but the online business supply chain which is supposed to get raw materials to assembly finished goods to retail units on time is an issue. ...

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Sharing Global Supply Chain Knowledge

In global supply chains, managers have consistently struggled with sharing valuable knowledge with buyers and suppliers across borders.

Increasingly, talk of the "dark side" of collaborative relationships has left managers wondering who benefits most from knowledge-sharing activities: their companies or their partners. In order to find the answers to these questions, the authors conducted an in-depth study of more than 100 cross-national supply chain partnerships in the industrial chemicals, consumer durables, industrial packaging, toy and apparel industries in multiple locations in 19 countries.

The authors found three types of knowledge sharing within the supply chain, each offering distinct benefits to buyers and suppliers: information sharing, joint sense making and knowledge integration. They also found that no matter how "diverse" the home cultures of the buyer and supplier companies, these differences had no impact on the propensity to share knowledge.

Drawing on examples from the auto (Toyota), aerospace (Boeing, Lockheed Martin and United Technologies) and toy industries, they examine how different types of knowledge sharing can benefit buyers or sellers individually, but more importantly, how it can enhance the performance of the partnership as a whole. They conclude that, while suppliers generally benefit more from knowledge-sharing activities, both buyers and suppliers profit; understanding the benefits of absolute versus relative gains is critical when building world-class global supply chains.

Sharing knowledge effectively means understanding that a disparity in benefits is part of what it takes to build partnerships that last.

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What Is Global Sourcing

Most companies now include global sourcing as part of their procurement strategy. Global sourcing often aims to exploit global efficiencies in the delivery ...

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Benchmarking Foreign Innovation

While many nations have taken the innovation challenge to heart and put in place a host of policies to spur innovation, the United States has done little, consequently falling behind in innovation policies and risking falling behind in innovation performance as well.

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Asia, Europe Find Their Supply Chains Yanked.

The easiest to understand is the collapse of industrial production in East Asia, where the supply chain starts in places like Taiwan and Vietnam and moves ...

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APEC Discuss Supply Chain Connectivity

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have launched the Supply-Chain Connectivity Initiative (SCI). Beyond just looking at reducing tariffs ...

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Sourcing Expands Role in Outsourcing

The Services Shift: Seizing the Ultimate Offshore Opportunity: Robert E. Kennedy, Ajay Sharma: Books ISBN: 0137133502 ISBN-13: 9780137133505

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“Global Sourcing of Services is a powerful source of competitive advantage as economic borders become thinner... Kennedy pulls up the curtain and explains the what, why, and where of offshoring. His work with both providers and customers illuminates both the potential and the challenges of global sourcing. The Services Shift provides insights on the shifting business paradigms. This book cuts through the rhetoric and provides managers practical advice. A must read!!!”

– Anurag Jain, Managing Director, Asia Pacific; President for Applications Solutions (AS); and President of Insurance & Business Process Solutions (IBPS) for Perot Systems

Global Trading Partner Enablement

Automotive industry supplier enlists Crossgate to implement an EDI Managed Services solution to simplify ERP consolidation...

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