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Mattel Outsourcing
Mattel Outsourcing
Minimizing China Sourcing Problems
You can minimize your quality, technical and delivery problems with your Chinese suppliers by educating yourself on a better mode of supplier management of supplier culture, communications, workers, management and business styles. Most times I had to solve manufacturing problems, supplier-buyer technical disputes, or quality issues, which are created by US or European high flying VPs, technical or procurement executives, whom after a few trips to China, or working under the umbrella of a big multinational, claimed they know everything about China and then proceeded to create problems for their China suppliers and their own companies.
Here is what they are doing wrong:
• China, like other fast moving emerging companies, have management people which switched jobs constantly and climbed the management ladder rapidly without time to gather management or working skills. Most are hired for good spoken English, but not talents by corporations setting up offices inside China. Most are hired in a hurry.
• Local managers imagine themselves to a higher status when working for a foreign corporation like IBM or GE, and in their communication style with local suppliers. Thus creating antagonism from suppliers.
• Imposition of Western style production management techniques, concepts and feedback onto China suppliers without full comprehension of how the supplier started off. It’s akin to the US going to war with Iraq without a full understanding of the diversity of Iraqis and undercurrents of obstacles to change.
Simply said it’s all about inexperience poor China outsourcing approach, bad supplier management build up and too much haste to hire people to work in or sent to China. I am seeing too many occasions when we have to support our customers’ China Procurement Offices management and technical personnel in getting the right results from their Chinese suppliers. The Mattel problem can be a controlled problem if they had the right people to foresee the foreseeable problems from fast running suppliers in a fast growing country.
About the Author
Derrick Go
Snr. VP Business Development, Global Service
AMREP SUPPLIER CONFORMANCE AND COMPLIANCE
AMREP is a company which manages suppliers in Asia for US customers for the last 25 years. There is lots of shared supplier management data available by going to www.amrepinspect.com
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