Q : What’s your main job as a consultant?
A: The main activity of Absol China Consulting is to assist foreign and local Chinese companies into proceeding to significant improvements within their organization. Indeed, there are two possible ways to achieve this goal: either by building professional working tools that will help the company operate within a stronger and more standard process (especially for activities in regards to the Supply Chain Operations) ; or by studying the existing system, identifying the weaknesses and possible improvements, and providing companies with concrete advices and working tools that will guarantee sustainable results. I have recently helped a French company to build their own suppliers audit tool, throughout consulting sessions firstly, then a training seminar so that the company` s staffs would learn how to use the tool, and finally we had a 2 days coaching session in factories in which the trained staffs were tested on site while using the new audit tool. Beside this, I am currently working with a Taiwanese-managed factory in Shenzhen that has recently suffered from a bad audit result given by its client: my task here is to assist the company into improving all departments’ internal mechanisms (warehouse management, production, quality control…) and work on the sustainability of the new implementations.

I am also providing business training courses to both foreign and Chinese companies. Seminars content is mostly in regards to the Supply Chain operations and management (sourcing, purchasing, audit, QC…).

Q: What are the major problems faced between China suppliers and Western companies? Do you have some such examples?
A: In my opinion, the major issue lies in frequent miscommunication between western companies and Chinese manufacturers. By miscommunication, one must understand lack of information flow and difficulty to understand each other’s constraints. Foreign buyers often assume that their suppliers are aware de facto of all the products quality and norms requirements of their market, and they very often forget that they should be the ones providing manufacturers with all these information during the first phase of sourcing. For example, a supplier who has long term experience in exporting to South America will not necessarily know in details what the requirements and security norms updates of the European market are.

Also, Chinese manufacturers are not used to informing customers when they are facing delivery time issues: understanding the “face” cultural matter is a key point here, nevertheless the solution lies in more anticipation of the problems, first by giving purchasing orders earlier and setting up a tight schedule of information exchange about orders status while building a good relationship with suppliers.

Another issue concerns the unreliability of suppliers for the quality of products in case of repeat orders. Indeed, in a lot of cases, products quality is very good the first time but it drastically decreases along the way if you order again the same items. A little modification here and there doesn’t bother the manufacturers who are either trying to save costs or who are becoming less careful about quality. Again, foreign buyers should follow-up harder while protecting themselves from financial risks that could be caused by goods of bad quality.

Q: What do you suggest the Western companies or the Chinese suppliers to do to tackle the problems?
A: Western companies should emphasize on anticipation of the issues, create more communication, and push/train suppliers for a better bilateral information flow. When Chinese companies reply “ok” to your questions and demands, always repeat what you said in other words to make sure all is understood and confirm again in written form. It is also essential to work on both sides with a structured process and professional tools, so that the scope of responsibilities and the scope of information to be exchanged between both parties are defined on an “official basis”.

Chinese companies are more and more opened to improvement. I can really see it through my work, as they efficiently cooperate with me when we are re-working their company `s organization. Buyers should nevertheless be careful when selecting suppliers in the first place: either choose a supplier which company seems to be able to guarantee great quality of product, or choose a supplier whose products `s price will be lower but with the risk that results are less stable: in this case, I can make a consulting intervention at your supplier` s to higher his service level, and help both of your companies guarantee a longer term business relationship!