Avela Corporation has been sourcing manufacturing in China for our clients since 2002 and we have pretty much heard it all. Clients often come to us after having tried to “go it alone” by dealing with a trading company that they may have met at a trade show, through a website on Alibaba or elsewhere. If all goes well, things … Read More
Having been in the China sourcing business for almost 13 years now, I am often asked what is the most difficult aspect of working in China. My short answer is “Communication”. China manufacturers want to create the product you are asking for. What I have come to appreciate is just how nuanced our thoughts are, and how good communication is taken for … Read More
Usually I am writing detailed blogs about China Sourcing. But not this time. It is time to take a break from China Sourcing and celebrate life. One of the perks of being in China for over 10 years now is having the privilege of participating, in a small way, in the lives of my staff and friends in China. As … Read More
China Sourcing: My personal experience. To sum up part one briefly, China has a conundrum when it comes to intellectual property. On the one hand, they are the world masters at copying or knocking off. There is a cultural argument, or some might call it an excuse, that it in the tradition of Confucianism, it is considered an honor for your idea … Read More
China Sourcing seems precarious. China has a reputation for knocking off or copying products. This reputation is well deserved. If you look at it from a neutral point of view, it is kind of amazing. I say amazing because, not only are the accuracy of knock-offs impressive, but the speed of copying a product is breathtaking. On one hand this … Read More
At my Vistage meeting last week, we listened to a speaker about mergers and acquisitions. And as usual with me, I was trying to imagine how this great information would pertain China sourcing. He said that 65 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail because parties spent time putting out fires and not planning properly. That
I get asked quite often; “How can you guarantee that my order from China will be perfect?” I usually say that we have procedures and a process to work through quality issues. There is a whole list of things we do including the development of a check lists, photos and video confirmation and third party materials testing just to name a few. But what I don’t talk too much about is what else we are doing behind the scenes to increase accountability on the China side and both sides for that matter. It is something we do to make our job so much easier in China but it dawns on me that maybe I should be bragging (just a little) about our accountability effort and how it saves time, money and benefits all three parties. (Our client, the factory in China and us- Avela Corporation
So what does business transparency have to do with Sourcing in China? I will get to that in a minute, but let me set the stage.
As the transparency movement drives businesses to be more open about their products and services, it is becoming routine to expect full disclosure on the who, what, when, where and how our products and services offered. It has gone way beyond “features and benefits”, and now with instant tools like FaceBook and Twitter just to name a few, we are at the instantaneous mercy of the fingertips of our customers.
I was thinking about my job and what it really represents. It struck me that sourcing products and services in China is all about change and I am really a change agent. I guess that is why I only deal with top executives as change is too difficult to power up from the bottom. Powering change from the top down is where change is most likely to occur. And change seams like such a natural process, but I know from personal experience that it can be seam painful.
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