Tag Archives: Suppliers

Thai floods, supply chain and insurance impact

An article in the Wall Street Journal (Nov 3, 2011) describes the floods in Thailand impacting 25% of the world’s supply of hard drives. The Honda plant’s water damage impacted global supply of components, and a plant in Brazil had … Continue reading

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OEMs, Yuan contracts and supplier costs

An article in the Wall Street Journal (Oct 3, 2011) describes China’s attempts to make the Yuan a global currency and its role in supplier contracts. Current rules to buy and sell yuan involve a lot of paperwork, as a result … Continue reading

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Apple’s use of supply chain as a strategic weapon

A New York Times article (24 Oct 2011) describes Apple’s low price strategy – iPhone 4GS priced at $199, iPads at $499 etc, with competitors barely managing to match prices for similar or lower specification products. The article suggests that … Continue reading

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Strategies to decrease procurement costs – not just a price focus

In a talk by Mr Haaije van der Brug, Procurement Manager for Shell in Russia, on October 18, 2011, he described the 40/40/20 practice at Shell. The claim is that cost savings are generated only 20 % of the time … Continue reading

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Simple Labels or Comprehensive Nutrient Labels for Food ?

An article in the New York Times (Oct 21, 2011, B3) describes a new proposed food labeling system by the Institute of Medicine. The proposal would list calories per serving and up to three stars. Each star would be for … Continue reading

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Contradictory trends – Retail Sales forecasts at odds with imports trends

An article in the New York Times (Oct 11, 2011) describes the contradiction faced by shipping companies. Growth in retail sales have inspired strong retail growth forecasts into the future. But dropping manufacturer shipments at ports suggest demand downturns at … Continue reading

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The Impact of concentration in the Global Electronics Supply Chain

An article in the Economist (Oct 8, 2011) describes how concentration of manufacturing by Taiwanese firms has enabled price decreases and feature increases faster than chip prices. At HTC, new product development time has dropped by six months compared to two … Continue reading

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Sprint guarantees Apple it will take 30 million iPhones ?

A Wall Street Journal article (Oct 4, 2011) describes a guarantee by Sprint that it will buy at least 30.5 million iPhones in return for the opportunity to offer those phones on its network.  Such volumes in turn enable Apple … Continue reading

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The US Navy’s concern about sole suppliers for defense

An article in Bloombergbusinessweek (Sept 5, 2011) describes the worry in the Navy that their sole sourced contract for the Aegis Combat System with Lockheed Martin may not have delivered the best deal. Past contracts to Lockheed have been under … Continue reading

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Nokia volume drops and supplier impact

A Wall Street Journal article (Sept 27, 2011) describes the declining fortunes of Nokia and its impact in suppliers. These suppliers are described as finding that Apple and Android based smartphones are using custom built components that are closed to … Continue reading

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