Logistics Or Supply Chain Management

Hello Wills,

Thanks for starting this thread.

I've spent some time developing software for the scm department in a telecoms firm. My dream is to take Nigeria to the next level of procurement by providing procure to pay solutions like those in the UK and US. I'm quite interested in discussing with you (and other interested people) as you said you're familiar with Ariba.

I would also want all the scm professionals here to post problems they are currently facing in their various organizations and let's discuss how we can solve them cost effectively. problems like supplier sourcing, invoicing, integration with accounts payable et cetera.

Yeah,  the forum will really spruce things up,  Maybe we that know about this forum should do some more word of mouth publicity about the forum so we can get more participation.

please ignore the first email id:

jerry.udie@gmail.com

You very right Sir!, indeed there’s a whole lot to talk and share knowledge and experience about, so I think as you said its appropriate to change the  focus from professional bodies promotion.

Like you rightly said there is a changing pattern in Global sourcing , china the one country that has seen its GDP grown astronomically in recent times then any other developing nation in that region and indeed the world, is currently seeing less and less investment  in terms of companies using china as the destination for low cost country sourcing, for example in the clothing market more and more companies are considering  and even setting up shop in other far eastern countries like Vietnam, where production cost and labour cost is a lot cheaper, also with the growing concern about quality issues e.g. the Toy recall issues and the recent  problem with Milk from china.
china is even becoming less an attractive destination but that’s on the one hand, because despite these challenges the Chinese government is putting a lot in place to change the perception of chain as a low cost sourcing country, its trying to develop china’s capability so that china can bee seen as a country that can offer considerable level of technology and quality, its also trying to develop internal level of production and consumption of Chinese goods by Chinese.

From recent publication I have read and seen online a lot of funding is going into development, to shit infrastructural developments to the hinterland where there has been less development and as such an uneven spread of wealth and development in the country.
All of this will have far reaching effects on global logistics, sourcing in and from chain.

I believe it’s by having a global perspective of what’s happening around the world in times like these where there’s a lot of uncertainty, due to global recession and the present financial crisis hitting some of the western nations.  It was even on the news today that the US, China and Germany are all under recession at the moment.
Datriplea like u said  theres  actually an ongoing preference for Mexico over China as a manufacturing hub by US manufacturers, but even this has its own challenges as is been seen now, with border congestion issues, cultural issues, and the most important the lack of certain skilled labour in mexico,often times companies have had to send staffs to and fro, from the US to mexico just to cover some important roles or functions.

As you will know, most of this manufactures, will like to keep the core of the business in the US, things like product design, marketing, etc in the US and take the other part which is maily the production aspects to places like mexico due to the avalibility of cheap land and labour, hence we can see major development or congestion of manufacturing plants in border towns on the side of the developing countries such as mexico in this case.


If the people in government in a country like Nigeria, the policy makers, economist
etc should do any thing, I feel the one thing they should do is learn from the experience of the western world and better manage our own developing economies


It will do us a lot of good is other will contribute to this issues, things like the global ecomomic trends and its effects on the procurment,sourcing and logistics sectors?,