Supplier assessment is the new B2B currency

No sooner have we posted on the Ali-Credit project in Chengdu, than we are pointed to a Global Sources press release on a similar topic. And, ooh la la, they're working with the French. The release tells us that with "Bureau Veritas, one of the world's largest and most-trusted certification authorities, [Global Sources] have launched the B2B industry's most comprehensive supplier assessment service".

The release continues:

Co-developed by the two companies, the Supplier Capability Assessment Service verifies a range of supplier information including facilities, legal entity status, staffing, export markets, key clients, production capabilities, product capabilities, management systems and accreditations, quality control systems and development and expansion plans.

All information is obtained from in-person visits, face-to-face interviews and third-party verifications.

Whether this has all been thrown into particularly sharp focus by the recent quality issues rocking the Chinese consumer products outsourcing business, I'm not sure. However, I coincidentially stumbled across this on a New Zealand news site over the weekend:

"This is a crisis. The spate of product quality problems is an illustration that China's low-cost strategy has reached an end point," said Craig Pepples, the chief operating officer of Global Sources.

"The only solution now is for China to move upmarket and provide a slightly higher-end quality of product," Pepples said.

He said China, like other Asian Tiger economies before it, needed gradually to abandon its instinct to offer the lowest possible price to attract buyers.

"It's now getting to the point where it's so low that they can't do it without getting into unsafe product and manufacturing practices," Pepples said. "It's a turning point for China."