China's today national distribution capabilities

Filed in archive Market Overview on May 27, 2009

CHaINA web magazine has recently done a Q&A with Jean Pierre Chesse, the founder and CEO of Sinodis, a food importer and cold chain lo-gistics service provider in China. I went through the piece and even though the interview was more around cold chain in China, there were some interesting info. on the key SCM issues in China as well:

As an example, Jean Pierre briefly talke about the impact of current crisis on China; apparently the companies which are focusing on import or national service are still doing good and only exporters are impacted. He also mentioned that in order to be successful in Chinese market, shaping a national distribution chain matters a lot. 3rd party service providers in the country have now got enough maturity to offer logistics capabilities at the national level.

Sinodis, for example, depending on the product and location, in most places, even Kunming, we are able to deliv-er on every Friday to their store. The order might be placed on Monday the week before, on Friday it leaves the country of origin, arriving in China on Monday, clearing customs on Tuesday and arriving in Kunming by Friday. To be able to do this, you need to carry a large range of quality imported products that arrived the same day in China from various countries. Such unique multi-temperature products require the supply chain to offer different capabilities depending on product's nature.

Overall, I would still see a great opportunity area in China regarding SCM; it's a bit far otherwise it would have been a perfect career location;)