Supply Excellence — Global Supply Management: More Strange But True Tales

Global Supply Management: More Strange But True Tales

July 19th, 2007 · by Tim Minahan · No Comments · LCCS and trade, supply management, supply market dynamics, supply risk

Yesterday’s post gave a sneak peek at the surprising early findings from IACCM’s ongoing Challenges in Global Supply Chain. Topping the list of surprises was that purchasing and supply chain executives from around the globe awarded Europe the dubious title as the toughest place to negotitate and manage supply — even those from European-based firms.

Some other oft overlooked hurdles of doing business abroad identified in IACCM’s early findings include:

Logistics, negotiation and on-time delivery are among the areas supply managers cite as most challenging. In fact, IACCM reports that more than half the survey participants highlighted long shipping leadtimes, burdensome and time-consuming customs procedures, delivery delays, and managing exchange rates among the more challenging issues when managing global supply.
Internal issues, such as lack of resources, internal contention and insufficient planning are also constraining the results of global sourcing initiatives. Specifically, IACCM found that insufficient in-country resources negatively impacted supply manager’s ability to effectively identify and assess suppliers and to manage ongoing quality and cultural challenges.
Despite flaming headlines in the business press (and from Democratic Presidential hopefuls), ethical standards and labor-related issues have not proved to be significant issues when sourcing and managing supply abroad.

When it comes to region-specific challenges, IACCM ucovered the following:

Quality control and managing across language and culture are the two most severe on-going issues. This is particularly true in Asia, where quality, culture and logistics are all major concerns in dealing with suppliers there.
When it comes to dealing with suppliers in Europe, government regulation, cost, and long lead-times are far greater challenges. (Just try to call a supplier in Spain or Italy over the next two months.)

Once again, I encourage Supply Excellence readers to take part in this ground-breaking benchmark study by completing this 5-minute survey. All participants will receive a complimentary copy of the final report.

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