Global Supply Chain Management

The biggest global alcohol companies are sizing up buyout and tie-up opportunities in China, India, South Korea and Vietnam, keen to profit from a $258 billion Asian market that is growing twice as fast as the rest of the world.

Chinese solar panel makers confident of prospects in Europe, despite EU's anti-dumping investigation

Your iPhone is probably better-traveled than you are. Apple for the first time gave the world a glimpse inside its global supply chain, exposing at once its vast expanse and the ever-present perils in manufacturing tens of millions of consumer products.

Cambodia on Tuesday inaugurated a new container terminal of the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, turning the port as a large hub for logistics supply and goods collection and distribution.

Supply chain failures, first in China and now in Canada, might have Yum! Brands CEO David Novak singing that old Frank Sinatra song about “riding high in April, shot down in May.’”

The world's third largest chain shop retailer -- Tesco -- has officially shown its keen interest to source a number of non-RMG (readymade garment) products from Bangladesh.

With the global economy struggling to take off, many are concerned about what changes 2013 could bring to large corporations and their supply chains. While some experts view the future as bright for both producers and consumers, others fear a global financial crisis could hinder growth for quite some time.

The tragedy of waste: A new report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has found that as much as 50% of all food produced around the world never reaches a human stomach due to issues as varied as inadequate infrastructure and storage facilities through to overly strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free offers and consumers demanding cosmetically perfect food.

Wang Quan, the new Chinese owner of a hotel in this farm town tucked into the tropical mountains of northern Laos, is hoping that the first of 20,000 Chinese workers will arrive here soon to start construction on a new railroad.

Well we made it through 2012, and it actually turned out to be a reasonably good year, in terms of supply chain news and events.  There were a few disasters of course, but this now seems to be a commonplace theme for global supply chain planners  (the world’s logisics network are impacted at least once or twice a year by major disasters).

The great outsourcing story used to be from Europe to India (IT) and China (manufacturing). But now southeast Asian countries are the preferred destination, and not just for western companies. India and China are outsourcing to their Asean neighbours too.

As Samsung warns investors of the risk of shrinking hardware profits in the future, analysts note that Apple's future potential lies with exponential software growth, something the company has a distant lead in creating and an apparent exclusive in understanding.

Apple Inc. needs to overhaul its supply chain to meet demand for cheaper smartphones in emerging markets, former Chief Executive Officer John Sculley said.

A Chinese electronics company that makes Apple products said it is working with police to discover whether employees had accepted bribes from its suppliers.

Uniqlo has committed to eliminating the release of all hazardous chemicals throughout its global supply chain by 2020, in response to Greenpeace's global Detox campaign.

As I looked back on 2012, preparing a series of posts about how technology and startups have changed in Asia, it struck me just how significant the period was for Southeast Asia.

While e-commerce companies have plunged into ever-increasing competition in the Chinese domestic market, some are trying their luck outside China to find other ways to fuel growth. A number of Chinese e-commerce players, including Jingdong Mall, dubbed China's amazon.com, and online clothing retailer Vancl (Beijing) Technology Co, have already stretched their reach globally with different approaches.

Rare earth elements, as every commodities nerd knows, are in fact not very rare at all. Some, such as cerium and lanthanum, are among the more abundant elements in the earth's crust.