@Risk

Most European retailers consider expanded European cross-border e-commerce a medium or high priority for growth. However, many are struggling to navigate diverse local laws, regulations and practices.

A new study conducted by Accenture found that retailers wanting to grow cross-border online sales across Europe are challenged on several different fronts, including:

• The diversity of product returns laws  (cited by 47 percent)
• Difficulties in efficiently handling product returns cross-border  ( 44 percent)
• The cost of compliance with different national laws regulating consumer transactions, such as distance selling, or data transfer requirements (42 percent)
• The differences in labor laws  as being a key challenge (42 percent)
• The cost of compliance with different national fiscal regulations (42 percent)
• Differences in packaging and labeling laws (38 percent)
• Differing VAT levels between markets (34 percent)

As Accenture describes in its press release, the differences between packaging and labeling laws can be particularly problematic. Retailers that have one common inventory for both their store and internet operations are required to put the same label on all inventory and in multiple languages, regardless of the goods’ specific destination. What’s more, while many European markets simply require retailers to report how much packaging they use annually, some may require detailed packaging information at the individual product level.

Still, the increasing willingness of European consumers to use digital channels as part of their shopping experience is driving retailers to focus on delivering both efficient online, cross-border operations and revenue growth in this area.

These are reasonable aspirations. (more…)

Rising labor costs and quality concerns have many US companies reevaluating their overseas strategies.

In fact, new research conducted by Cook Associates Executive Search found that a full 85 percent of manufacturing executives see the possibility of  certain manufacturing operations returning to the US.

What are the reasons for this potential shift? Survey participants cited:

• overseas costs (37 percent)
• logistics (19 percent)
• other, including economic/political issues, quality and safety concerns, patriotism and overseas skills shortages for highly technical manufacturing processes (36 percent)

The study, which polled nearly 3,000 manufacturing executives primarily in small- to mid-sized US companies from October 13 through November 18, 2011, identified low-volume, high-precision, high-mix operations, automated manufacturing and engineered products requiring technology improvements or innovation as the primary forms of manufacturing returning to the US. (more…)

Results of the 2011 Change in the (Supply) Chain survey show that many Japanese high-tech companies are shifting supply sourcing locations from domestic to other Asian countries, such as South East Asia.

More specifically, the survey, which was conducted by IDC Manufacturing Insights and commissioned by UPS, revealed that:

• The Japanese companies interviewed expect to reduce their domestic supply sourcing by nearly half, from 96 percent to 53 percent in the next three to five years.
• These companies also expect to increase sourcing from Mature Asia Pacific Countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore) almost threefold, from 9 percent to 24 percent.

The key concern appears to be cost management. More than two-thirds (68.9 percent) of the Japanese companies surveyed cited “reducing total supply chain costs” as the top supply chain priority in the past years. Not surprisingly, cost is also expected to remain one of the top drivers of change in the supply chain in the next three to five years. (more…)

Supply chain failures continue to plague companies worldwide.

A recent study conducted by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) found that a full 85 percent of the companies surveyed recorded at least one supply chain disruption in 2011. Interestingly, 40 percent of those disruptions originated further down the supply chain, past first tiers suppliers.

The research, which analyzed responses from more than 550 organizations across more than 60 countries, also revealed that: (more…)

Supplier collaboration is essential to supply chain risk management, and as PRTM has shown, companies that have implemented operational flexibility and collaborative initiatives are now realizing significant business benefits.

Unfortunately, though, building collaborative relationships with suppliers is often easier said than done.

Even though virtually every aspect of our work day has been transformed by Web 2.0 communication platforms, these technologies have been slow to infiltrate supply chain management. In fact, most companies today still rely on phone, fax, email and spreadsheets for collaboration with suppliers. These methods are frustrating, costly, inefficient –and perhaps worst of all, they’re risky, too.

Shouldn’t there be a better way?

At Aravo, we think there absolutely should be a better way. And that’s why this week we released Aravo Assure^TM, an innovative web-based B2B social network built to revolutionize the way businesses engage, share data and collaborate.

The concept is relatively simple . . . and long overdue. Using Aravo Assure’s^TM Enterprise 2.0 technology, trading partners are empowered with an industrial-strength collaboration platform and many-to-many communications framework designed to facilitate information exchange, while reducing the expense and administrative burden on both parties. That means Aravo Assure^TM makes it easier than ever before for suppliers and buyers to build robust, collaborative relationships –the kind of relationships that ultimately, mitigate supply chain risk. (more…)