A China Sourcing Summer Shutdown? This is Not an April Fools Joke …

Over on All Roads, Richard Brubaker has the scoop that the Chinese government is considering seriously curtailing factory production between July 17th and September 20th of this year. This is not an April Fools joke (like my post about quitting this …

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China’s Power(lacking) Grid Leads to Supply Disruptions Across Industries

Compared with India, China often comes out looking like the far more advanced country from an infrastructure perspective. But looks can be deceiving, especially when available demand outstrips capacity the energy sector. After all, without power, you…

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Ethics and Africa Sourcing: Don’t Wait, Just Do It

Even though I’m still skeptical of Africa as a key developing market from a sourcing perspective relative to China and India in the short-term, the region absolutely holds significant promise for the future. But given the extreme poverty in parts of …

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From Real Time Economics: No Real Time Manufacturing Recession (Yet)

One Wall Street Journal blog that I’ve enjoyed reading of late is titled Real Time Economics. In a recent post, the authors show US manufacturing activity remaining above recessionary levels for now. Citing recently released ISM data showing a neglig…

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Alibaba Finally Gets the Cash to Build Something Valuable

If you read this post, you already know my views on Alibaba as a global sourcing resource. But now that they’re finally public as of today and trading at 155 times next years earnings, perhaps they will have raised enough capital to actually build so…

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All Roads Lead to Online Global Sourcing

My Shanghai-based colleague Richard Brubaker, who pens the well-known China business and supply chain blog All Roads Lead to China, has been quite busy of late offering up his prognostications on everything from the future of China quality to inland …

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The Coming Indian Manufacturing Boom

Quick, from a Spend Management perspective, what’s the biggest difference between India and China? If you guessed that India was largely services focused and China had more of an industrial bent, you’d be wrong. India, in fact, is headed down the man…

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Alibaba — Good for Wall Street, a Waste of Time for Global Sourcing Professionals

For those involved in global sourcing, one of the dirty secrets of the trade is how bad most supplier search sites actually are. While many of these directories had the chance to build out community as well as commerce from the start — through feat…

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Continental Procurement Woes Get Worse

As if high commodity prices in base metals, food and energy not to mention capacity constrained supply markets were not enough to drive fear into most sourcing managers in the region, the overall Euro-Zone economy is looking to be in increasingly tou…

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Banning China is not the Answer

I suppose one of the best things about democracy is allowing debate and the free exchange of information and ideas. But democracy can also lead politicians and legislative bodies to make the most idiotic foot-in-mouth statements that would never see …

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