Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival and Introducing SupplyScope
Historically, the Mid-Autumn festival marked the end of the summer harvest season - a time when families began to gradually turn their attention away from the work in the fields to the work closer to home. These days, the festival (one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar) typically signifies the end of the summer lull in business activities and the start of the busy autumn business season. In Greater China, the Mid-Autumn festival ushers in a period of countless trade fairs; a time when Chinese suppliers strive to draw the attention of foreign buyers and when buyers flock to Asia, hoping to find that key supply-chain partner.
On this year's Mid-Autumn festival, we launched SupplyScope, a Web site that provides suppliers with the tools they need to not only highlight their capabilities and showcase their products, but to promote their reputation as well.
We built SupplyScope with the needs of suppliers as well as small- to medium-size purchasing organizations in mind. For years, suppliers have had limited options for promoting their reputations online. At the same time, buyers have continued to rely on inefficient methods of finding reliable and trustworthy suppliers. Attending trade fairs, hiring trade brokers, ordering third-party company reports can certainly yield trade leads, but doing these things can be costly and time-consuming. Additionally, all of these methods of identifying suppliers are fraught with moral hazards.
In the end, many buyers take what amounts to a gamble in selecting a new supplier (or, for better or worse) stick with an existing supplier never able realize lower total costs of ownership (TCO) or better product quality or social responsibility elsewhere.
In light of the recent rash of recalls and warnings about Chinese-made products it is more imperative now than ever before for good suppliers to takes steps to preserve and promote their reputations. For example, not all Chinese suppliers cut corners on quality or use faulty or dangerous raw materials to make their products. And not all suppliers in more developed economies like the U.S. and Western Europe are above the fray either.
To be sure, many online "B2B" supplier directories have existed for quite some time. These directories have allowed suppliers to advertise their capabilities and list their wares. But the companies that publish these directories take the "Yellow Pages" approach to managing their content (and collecting suppliers' money). Companies that pay higher fees (e.g., silver, gold, platinum levels of listings) appear higher in the browse or search results than companies that do not.
But savvy buyers know that the size of a supplier's advertising and marketing budget does not guarantee its ability to deliver high-quality products on time and to interact with integrity in a formal business relationship.
More and more overseas suppliers, knowing that they must differentiate themselves somehow to succeed in the hyper-competitive export markets in their countries recognize that there must be a better, more cost-effective way to let buyers around the world know that they can "deliver the goods" and to rise above the fray.
Companies such as Matto Industries in Taiwan, JFanny Fitness and HongJin Stainless Steel Products in China, and Mega Choice and Raymonds Supply of Hong Kong, to name a few, recognize that their most import assets are their reputations. And they are willing to put their reputation on the line and on display to the world by using SupplyScope.
posted by SupplyScope @ 10:12 PM
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