local wisdom

Tom Hanks in The Terminal was inspirational in how to survive airport hell.
And so that’s who I was thinking of yesterday, on Thanksgiving, when waiting from morning through evening at Terminal 3 in Beijing.
I was awaiting news whether or not my delayed flight to Bangkok for a conference would cancel – which eventually [...]
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How do you get China suppliers to clean up their acts to prevent melamine or other toxic substances from finding their way into your products?
Plenty of expert advice centers on developing an iron-clad contract, where clauses about quality spell out what you want clearly, and other prose details litigation or arbitration if anything goes [...]
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By Steven Chow
I have been approached frequently by buyers ripped off by Chinese suppliers.
Oftentimes when I ask them to send me the purchase contract they signed with the suppliers, some of them will send me a pro forma invoice (PI), and some will say, “No, I don’t have a contract or PI; I keep [...]
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The Englishman dresses in tweeds or a three-piece pin-stripped suit and a Burberry raincoat on rainy days. He wears a bowler hat, carries a tightly furled, black umbrella with a cane handle and has a pink newspaper tucked under his left armpit. He goes to church on Sunday mornings and eats roast beef with Yorkshire [...]
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More.
It’s a generally accepted principle that more is better.
For example.
Less.
That sounds worse, doesn’t it?
But more isn’t necessarily better in an economic downturn. More suppliers, more factories, more products, more variations…these things cause complexity in business. And complexity costs.
Complexity is one of four critical pressure points that companies face when [...]
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Old school.
There’s nothing like it.
Finding an old school jacket in the attic that still fits. Grooving to the old school 8 track with a hot date on a rainy day. Getting out the old school playbook and kicking the opposing team’s butt with it.
While it’s trite to call someone an old China hand [...]
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Traditionally, inner China has appealed to multinational executives for its cheap manufacturing labor pool. Direct management of local employees was unnecessary as there were no employees, or at least very few. Jobs simply were outsourced to third party Chinese companies, who managed their own employees.
But as China now looks to increase domestic demand for goods [...]
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