Your Road Map to Going Global in Uncertain Times
Managing an international supply chain is getting riskier. Here's how to keep your product, your customers, and your company safe.
Factory riots and espionage in China. Mass uprisings in the Middle East. Economic uncertainty and swine flu in Southeast Asia. Drug cartels in Latin America.
The world's an uncertain place. And it's not only governments and massive companies that have to worry about geopolitical chaos.
If you're a small company manufacturing overseas, or if you have a substantial supply chain there, you're at increased risk from human events, too. Just like a disaster recovery plan, you need to make sure you have the proper structure in place to manage geopolitical risk.
Without it, you're gambling with disappointing your customers with late deliveries, building faulty products, or worse, having your business shut down entirely.
"It is a terribly difficult thing to protect yourself against global risk and technology-theft risk, whether it is designed theft or the embedding of spyware, but that is the world we live in," says Paul Golden, founder and chief executive of Schilling Ventures, a holding company for manufacturing ventures that build non-auto transportation and water filtration components.
Golden should know. About four years ago, his ability to ship from China was severely impaired by a strike in Shenzhen, in southern China, that lasted for about a week. Alhough the factory he had contracted with was not shut down, roads and ports were, and Golden missed product delivery dates for his customers.
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