Tag Archives: outsourcing

Low Cost Country Sourcing

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

Low-cost countries. A dream for some and a nightmare for other others. What are typical supply chain risks in low-cost countries and how can they be managed? That is the topic of the PhD dissertation by Holger Köhler, now available as a book: Supply Chain Risiken im Low Cost Country Sourcing: Reduktion von Lieferrisiken in China und der Türkei. In the book, which is a more or less unabridged version of his dissertation, Holger Köhler not only presents a (new) system for the systematization of supply chain risks, he also develops a model for the factors that influence supplier risk and he exemplifies the cause and effect of supplier risks in China and in Turkey.

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Committed Americans and Trusting Germans

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

Obviously, selecting the right third-party logistics provider (3PL) for your supply chain is an important decision in supply chain risk management. Here, trust and commitment are two highly interrelated notions that stimulate and facilitate customer loyalty and a long-lasting buyer-supplier relationship that can contribute to mitigating logistics risks. However, customer (and supplier) loyalty is formed differently in different countries. That is at the core of Commitment and Trust as Drivers of Loyalty in Logistics Outsourcing Relationships: Cultural Differences Between the United States and Germany, written jointly by Carl Marcus Wallenburg, David L. Cahill, A. Michael Knemeyer, and Thomas J. Goldsby. Is 3PL outsourcing in Germany really that much different from 3PL outsourcing in the US?
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3PL – a risk orchestrator?

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Revised on: 2015-10-06

Historically, third-party logistics providers, or 3PLs, provided traditional logistics services, such as transportation and warehouse management and nothing more than that. However, the increased volume and scope of services demanded from 3PLs have given rise to their changing role, where today they are engaged in strategic coordination of their customers’ supply chain activities. So say Zach Zacharia, Nada Sanders and Nancy Nix in their most recent article on The Emerging Role of the Third-Party Logistics Provider (3PL) as an Orchestrator. Here they show how 3PLs have evolved from providing logistics capabilities to becoming orchestrators of supply chains that create and sustain a competitive advantage. The question is, what is it that defines an orchestrator? And, are 3Pls also becoming risk orchestrators?

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Call for papers: Supply Chain Risk in China

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Revised on: 2011-08-04

Supply chain and operations management are increasingly global, and China has become the world’s manufacturing centre. Is China also becoming the world’s hotspot for supply chain risk? I doubt so., although most of my own posts related to China have a negative connotation. That said, the International Journal of Applied Management Science (IJAMS) has issued a call for papers for a special issue on Supply Chain and Operations Management in China. Although I used “Supply Chain Risk Management in China” as the attention grabber for this post, that is only one of many topics for articles that could be submitted to this special issue, which welcomes both theoretical concepts, empirical research and practical case studies.

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Can you outsource risk?

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Revised on: 2011-03-17

While China has taken steps to address safety concerns after the recalls of last year, yet small players all round – both among Chinese manufacturers and European importers – tend to be the soft spots in the supply chain.This article, at the China Sourcing Blog, points at what is probably the weakest link in global supply chains: the fact that the more you outsource, the less control you have over your supply chain. If everything goes right, the cost are low, but, if something goes wrong, the stakes and costs are high.

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