Oct 04 2005
IBUS 579 10/4 Discussion
Pre-1993
1. Have to unlearn what’s learned from western bus. school.
2. Still a family enterprise
3. Relationship-based
4. Trust is a big thing
5. Big-few relationship vs. Small-many relationships
6. Used to be HK only, now Asian regional - more expansion
7. Traditional Trading, grow/expand as the industry itself.
8. Individual success/advantage/Inter-culture/NOT arrogant
Traditional vs. New Supply Chain Manager
1. Starting being a translator;
2. Traditional: customer-intermed.-factories
New: world much more complicated: tarrif/quota
3. Provide rich values to retail customers in this new complicated world.
Advantage:
1. Compensation/HR flexible, tied to local
2. Leverage their ethenic heritage (humble, hardworking)
3. Oragnizational: special units (divisional), customer-focused,
4. Platform model: shared resource (HR, financial control, etc.) but entrepreneurial units.
Challenges:
1. Same people in the company competing for resources. How to resolve? Client exec also regional prod. head?
2. Maintaining trust/relationship (constant challenges)
3. Finding new market/new center of production
4. How about failed ventures
5. How do they manage their IT/BI infrastructure/platform
6. Premium service — high cost. Could that be a risk for small startup