China market: 3Q08 B2C transactions reach nearly 2.24 billion yuan

Press release, November 12; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 12 November 2008]

In the China market, sales transactions of B2C online shopping during the third quarter of 2008 reached a total value of 2.24 billion yuan (US$327 million), increasing by 25.6% on quarter and 88.2% on year, according to China-based consulting company Analysys International.

Of the total sale value, 849 million yuan or 37.9% was due to IT, communication and consumer electronics products and 394 million or 17.6% to publications, Analysys indicated. 360buy and 139shop were the top-two web portals for the former category of goods with market shares of 47.6% and 15.9% respectively, while DangDang and Joyo (Amazon in China) were the top two for the second category with market shares of 46.0% and 36.8%, Analysys added.

 Related stories

China market: B2C and C2C transactions top 1.8 ans 25.7 billion yuan in 2Q08 (Aug 6)

China market: More people online buy women's clothing than PCs, says survey (Jul 7)

China market: B2B e-commerce valued at nearly 1.1 billion yuan in 1Q08 (May 6)

China market: B2C sales at nearly 1.3 billion yuan in 4Q07 (Feb 25)

China market: B2C sales value to grow to over 13.5 billion yuan in 2011 (Dec 26)

China market: B2C transactions valued at almost 1.2 billion yuan in 3Q07 (Dec 5)

China market: 2Q07 B2C transactions valued at 1.135 billion yuan (Sep 5)

Six Sigma: How Process Improvement Leaders Produce Profits in Recessions

Ed: How can we reduce the engineering, purchasing time loss when working with Pacrim outsource?

How Process Improvement Leaders Produce Profits in Recessions: Meeting Proceedings

Non-members: Click here for a complimentary excerpt of How Process Improvement Leaders Produce Profits in Recessions: Meeting Proceedings.

OVERVIEW 
To reduce waste and inefficiencies, abundant in most companies, without hurting growth drivers is the mission of process improvement leaders. During economic slowdowns, productivity innovators dispursed throughout the organization manage costs down, switching roles during economic expansions to apply improvement tactics that drive top-line growth.

Topping today's agendas from the boardroom to the front-line is the critical issue of cutting costs while maintaining quality. Sales, marketing, information techonology, product development, customer experience and process improvement leaders deploy tools, from social media to Six Sigma, in innovative ways in efforts to become leaner, more profitable organizations.

At the September 2008 Global Benchmarking Council conference, members and guests gathered to discuss insights, innovations, best practices and lessons learned to improve processes, to reduce waste and to maintain integrity during times of tight budgets and broad economic woes.

Vice presidents, directors and managers responsible for promoting quality and process improvement in customer service, marketing, operations, sales and related areas will benefit most from these case studies from leading companies and the summarized transcripts from a targeted panel discussion and two facilitated roundtable discussions.

COMPANIES AND CASE STUDIES
Case studies include speaker biographies and company background before describing key challenges company leaders faced and how they overcame them, the connection between employee engagement, customer satisfaction and quality or tailored quality initiatives for organizations. Speaker anecdotes, quotes, select slides, insights and key take-aways all liven the case studies with personal touches and graphics. 

• Sanofi-Aventis gave an animated presentation on its software innovation, iTube, a social networking interface geared towards generation X and Y employees. The tool exemplifies how companies can identify with and engage their employees to prevent costly turnover of their younger sales staff to the competition as presented in "Social Media as a Tool for Employee Engagement."
• Nortel shared important points on how to connect quality initiatives to customer satisfaction by "planning the business and managing by it." Nortel has changed its processes for assessing customer satisfaction to align it directly to the company’s top business indicators, ensuring the company improves what is important to the customer and to the bottom line as shown in "The Critical Link Between Quality Excellence and Customer Satisfaction."
• Hewlett-Packard provided insight into HP’s Lean Sigma efforts and how focusing on quality, waste reduction and speed will impact the customer experience. Careful planning and execution of Lean Sigma projects and ensuring commitment of team members past project kick-off were emphasized in "Reducing Expenses while Improving Quality."
• FedEx Express elaborated on building a quality-oriented culture that starts with senior leadership direction. FedEx’s ABLE framework - assess, build, launch, evaluate - blends multiple quality methodologies and is applicable in every part of the organization, top to bottom as explained in "Quality Driven Management."
• Roche shared insights on how it applies market and customer segmentation in sales and marketing to better focus on what’s important to its key customers and how that translates into process improvement activities in "Leveraging Information Technology within Pharma Commercial Operations."
• DuPont shared learnings from its long history as a quality organization, arriving at Lean Six Sigma in 2004. The CEO and leadership team play critical roles in driving quality and in creating a custom methodology that fits the organization. 'One DuPont View' helps standardize processes across many business units as presented in "DuPont's Improvement Journey."
• InfraTrac shared perspectives on how to increase product integrity, which could save pharmaceutical companies millions by fending off counterfeits in "Cost-Effective Product Integrity."

Following the first four presentations on employee social networking, quality excellence through customer satisfaction, maintaining quality during cost reduction and quality driven management, Global Benchmarking Council members and guests divided into smaller groups for roundtable discussions and information exchanges on How Process Improvement Professionals Can Best Add Value during Turbulent Economic Times, discussing: 
Implications of the Current Economic Situation on Quality Groups
Choosing and Managing Process Improvement and Quality Tools for Optimal Results
Strategic Drivers to Leverage Scale and Scope of Globalization
Challenges in Execution of Globalization

The second day of networking and best practice sharing featured a targeted panel discussion on Leading Cost Reduction Efforts with Both Customer and Bottom Line in Mind. Cross-industry representatives fielded questions from the facilitator and from Global Benchmarking Council members and guests on:
Case Example of a Leadership Lesson Learned
From the Customers’ Eyes: Managing Cost Reduction while Maintaining Strong Customer Relationships & Loyalty
The Current & Future State of the Process Excellence Function

METHODOLOGY 
This report was compiled from notes taken during speaker presentations and in-depth roundtable and panel discussions at the September 2008 Global Benchmarking Council conference, "How Process Improvement Leaders Produce Profits in Recessions." For more information on the Global Benchmarking Council or to register for upcoming meetings, visit www3.best-in-class.com/gbc.

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Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Health Care; Defense; Aerospace; Banking; Energy; Financial Services; Service; Chemical; Manufacturing; Shipping; Computer Hardware; Computers; High Tech; Research; Insurance; Telecommunications; Biotech; Publishing; Media

Companies Profiled:
Amylin; Johnson & Johnson; Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems; Lockheed Martin; Boeing; British Petroleum; AAA; DuPont; FedEx; Hewlett-Packard; InfraTrac; MetLife; Motorola; Nortel Networks; Roche; Sanofi-Aventis; Thomson; Upsher-Smith; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

2009 Supply Outlook: Electronics suppliers target profitability

Semiconductor price wars are over, and connector suppliers will try to recoup higher materials costs.

By James Carbone -- Purchasing, 8/14/2008

Buyers can expect to see an attitude adjustment on the part of semiconductor suppliers. In fact, if they look closely, they'll see it now in suppliers' decisions to cut back on capacity expansion despite growing demand.

The lack of investment is indicative of changing priorities by chip suppliers about their business. "It is an indication that profitability comes first as opposed to gaining a few points of market share," says Bill McClean, president of IC Insights in Scottsdale, Ariz. "They feel they need to get higher prices and more revenue per wafer and they don't want to see this continual slide in prices. It is a major shift in attitude," he says.

Expect opportunity, risk in China's supply chain

James Carbone -- Purchasing, 5/20/2004

For many electronics purchasers, China has become a huge sourcing opportunity as well as a significant challenge. It is an opportunity because the amount of electronic components including passives, connectors, semiconductors and printed circuit boards being made in China continues to grow. For instance, the worldwide electronic connector market grew 11.2% in 2003. However, China led all regions of the world with a 30.6% growth rate, according to connector industry researcher Bishop & Associates.

Many U.S., Japanese and European suppliers have opened factories in China to take advantage of low-cost labor and to support the growing electronics equipment manufacturing industry in Asia. Some component companies have entered into joint ventures with Chinese companies to produce parts.

The growth of component manufacturing in China is the reason that component prices have continued to fall even though unit shipments are rising.

However, while many low-cost components can be sourced in China, there are issues that often can be a thorn in the side to buyers. Product quality from indigenous suppliers is often an issue. Price is often the main concern and component quality takes a back seat.

Counterfeit components continue to be a problem. In some cases components being sold in China are just shells, or sometimes a part may not have the performance requirements that they are supposed to have. In other cases, a part carries the name of a leading manufacturer, but it is in fact a knockoff.

Another challenge is a lack of understanding of how business in the West is done. Western companies often require a supplier to provide a lot of information about its operations before deciding to do business with the vendor. In China, indigenous suppliers are often leery of providing detailed information about their operations.

The issues involved in sourcing in China can be daunting for any size OEM or EMS provider. However, large OEMs are often better able to deal with the issues because they have more resources. Often they have international procurement offices (IPO) to evaluate and manage suppliers.

But purchasers at smaller companies often lack the resources to do the supplier evaluation needed to avoid getting stuck with defective or counterfeit parts. However, there are strategies that any size company can employ to reduce risk when sourcing in China...