The current circumstances causing disruptions of supply chains worldwide. Lockdown measures differ per country and influence your suppliers and market differently. The obstacles that are encountered to come from production till consumer are sometimes difficult and complex. Because regulations and policies deviate per country, we expect that supply chains will keep experience difficulties in the coming period.
Limited presence
Outside of the limitations within supply chains, there is another problem. The presence of you a company and person in a country such as China is also being limited. Worldwide scheduled flights are cancelled, passenger planes grounded. There are almost no flights flying between countries, including China. Where a travel ban is in place, it is even not allowed to enter a country or travel and therefore impossible to be present.
The current measures embody only the beginning of a long period of slowly scaling up the economy. However, we can’t expect that scaling up the movement of people between countries worldwide will be having the same rank of priority. As long as Corona is around us, social distancing will be required. In passenger planes, creating distance between passengers seems impossible to implement while staying profitable. In addition, countries try to control the influx of people and monitoring the possible risks of uncontrolled spreading. Due to the incubation period of the virus quarantine regulations as for China will stay in place in the near future. Therefore, we expect that we are at the beginning of a long period where current limitations will be still structurally relevant.
How are you going to organize this situation? Where before taking an aeroplane to China was easy, you might have been regularly present in China. Management of personnel, visiting factories and clients are, despite the current crisis, very important.
Losing representation in China
Who is representing you in China? The embodiment of you as a demanding and guiding party of your processes and projects is not available. You only can make use of the current parties present in China to represent you in China. You can choose to hire Chinese personnel and make them responsible for your representation. However, you can also choose for a Dutch company in China. Questions such as: Which kind of company are the most similar to me as a person and company and is, therefore, the ablest to represent me and my company the way that I would do? Also, there are interests. Is it satisfying that your representation in China, defends your foreign interest and is flexible if your country is changing in foreign policy based on the current developments in the world?
Asking the question of who would represent you the best in China seems currently more than relevant.
Visiting suppliers and factories
Visiting suppliers have become difficult. You are at the moment not in the position and possibility to travel to China. Basically, people are being discouraged to travel. Causing that you might avoid a business visit to China, if possible, to visit at all. However, the economy will need to scale up, your production as well. A positive dot on the horizon is that China reached an agreement with South-Korea and started conversations with Singapore to organize controlled important travel, including business trips, between the two countries. Maybe this is a model that can be arranged with more countries in the future. See: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/china-ease-entry-ban-foreigners-south-korea-fast-115908304.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALDcjPBBGDFUq-k3kqwkvbSB3jxBgPGGMfRf8e2SQtP8lEt26CnWP5w0ryak-0ywMGXQ0T-VPlumdVm0P-w5Oa1NMoYviZb7_I2hdSfuEUZtoqVjPeH7GAQo1iwc4rPjRp1U5pcAM6BzL9d9kuJuGmjA41HTGqM4yOH7TJqrk28a
Factory assessments and judgements, discussing opportunities and developments with factories are key to have a good insight into a factory or supplier. Visiting, assessments and communication with factories will not become less important because of this crisis. You can use representation in China to have an extension of you on-site. We could be that extension for you.
Development of products
With product development, it is preferred to reach clear meetings and coordination during the development stage of your product. Engineering a product and moulding of parts requires multiple testing rounds, verifications and control. Control that you have less due to the current travel restrictions. Testing samples and a real independent judgement can be only executed physically. In order to ensure the speed of the process, it stays important to judge samples within China. Making sure that products and parts are not sent out to you while having obvious visual product errors.
Managing your employees in China
It was already difficult to manage your Chinese staff from a distance. However, due to the current limitations, your control of your employees fades away. Also because of the current advice, quarantine consequences after infections or direct contacts, and the fear you’re your employees might experience its more troublesome to manage your team productively. One would like to work at home, but that might influence productivity. The other visits a restaurant where an infection has been found, which requires your whole office to stay in quarantine. However, parallel to these risks the relevant work have to be executed with sufficient effort and performance standards. How do you deal with this as a company? You can use a company like us that can support the management of your team here in China.