International Trade and Global Supply Chain

FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing

Questions to think about:

Why supply chain matters in the 21st century global economy?

What benefits a global supply chain can bring to us?

 What unique risks are involved in a global supply chain?

What role the government and policies can play in facilitating the global supply chain?

Are you prepared to embrace the concept of “made in the world”?

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Why People Think Differently about International Trade?

FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing

This week in TMD433 we looked at a critical activity closely associated with the textile and apparel industry in the 21^st century: International Trade.  Among the fundamental questions we examined, whether trade is beneficial or not is a one that all of us care much about but also has raised many debates. 

Just this week, the Pew Research Center released its latest survey findings about the public opinion on growing trade and business ties between countries and views about the impact of trade on jobs, wages and prices. The results show that not only Americans, but also people in other countries, including those developing ones, are divided about international trade. Anyhow, the highest level of public skepticism about trade and foreign investment is found in the United States.  

Job and wage are among the top concerns about trade among the general public. In Italy, nearly 59 percent survey respondents…

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Top 5 Reasons Why Your Company Should Export!

Currently, the United States has free trade agreements in effect with 20 countries. These agreements, along with the internet and new banking regulation, facilitate international commerce and open the doors for American businesses to sell to the rest of the world. Many small business owners still think exporting is out of their reach.  If you are not convinced yet, below you will find five additional reasons to start looking for customers globally.

1. Expand your customer base.

More than 95% of the total world population is outside the United States. More people and more opportunities await in world markets. Should a slow-down occur in the domestic economy, exporting can reduce your business risk by developing alternative markets.

2. Increase your profit and cash flow.

 More customers lead to more sales and increased profits. Many exporters are paid in advance and this results in an increase in cash flow. Also, average orders…

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Operational And Non-Operational benefits of RFID Technology In a Container Port

RF ID Infrastructure

The operational benefits
1. The cheap costs of labour and equipments (e.g. workers, fuel used in transtainers);
2. The container flows (e.g. flows of full containers – Export)
3. Some infrastructural data (e.g. number of loading/unloading docks, number of transtainers,number of front loaders, % of containers moved by transtainers);
4. The duration of the key elementary activities (e.g. time spent for the driver identity control, etc). Several of the presented parameters are related with the container flows: i.e. the largest commercial ports are located in the far-east, where the labour costs is low and the equipments are cheaper than elsewhere.

The non-operational benefits
1. Increased productivity of the spreaders and improved service level: the reduced time needed for the handling activities leads not only to a reduction of the labour costs and fuel (evaluated in the operational model), but also to an increased productivity and to a better service level both to internal and external customers, which are more difficult to assess but not less important to consider. More in detail, using the queuing theory, a reduction of about 20% of the time spent by the container within the system has been assessed;
2.Environmental benefits: the time spent by the trucks waiting in queue at the entrance of the container port has been considered in order to evaluate the reduction of pollution that can be reached thanks to a reduction of the queuing times. The analysis carried out for the reference port shows that a reduction of about 2 hours of the time spent in the system can lead to a reduction of 0.2 tons of CO2 in the annual emissions.
3. Intangible benefits: these benefits can easily be observed, but they are not easy to quantify.Some relevant intangible benefits that can be reached by using RFId technology are the followings: the automatic identification of the containers and ensuing fewer errors, the better container visibility and traceability, the increased security, the reduction of the contentious issues, the reduction of the illegal trade, the reduction of the variance of the total lead time and the reduction of the administrative costs.

How to Attract International Customers

Copy to Learn - Learn to Work

In my mind, one of the best parts about selling on Etsy is that it’s a truly global marketplace. With 25 million members in 200 countries worldwide (and expanding), there are endless opportunities to grow your business and connect with buyers. How cool is that?

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“New patterns of trade emerge”

No longer just a trend, globalization is now the dominant business environment and we are seeing new patterns of trade clearly emerge.

Today, there is a net redistribution of wealth away from the rapid-growth economies — a process accelerated by the financial downturn and the economic recession that it has caused. Companies from those rapid-growth markets are now challenging the giants of the Fortune and Forbes lists.

We are witnessing a surge of investment from west to east, some of it speculative but much of it the result of by individual businesses decisions.

Focusing on west to east misses the important east to east and growing east to west dimension. And centering on flows to India and China misses the far greater increase that is happening within regional blocs closer to home.

World exports

Although global trade collapsed during the financial crisis, it has since bounced back strongly, led by trade among emerging markets.

But what remains unclear is whether the key trends of the past ten years can be expected to extend into the coming decade, or whether the global financial crisis has changed the dynamic of the global economy, resulting in new patterns of international trade.

 

A model of future international trade patterns for the next 10 years

Working with Oxford Economics, we have sought to model the future patterns of international trade for the next 10 years.

The report includes:

• Changes in geography, supply, sectors
• The brightest prospects
• FDI flows and the need for a local presence
• Global trade growth to become more concentrated

World trade has recovered strongly following the global financial crisis. But rather than a return to business as usual, we are now seeing new patterns of international trade emerge.

Businesses will need to adjust their strategies to reflect the changing patterns of world trade that are developing and are poised to intensify over the next decade.

Source: http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Business-environment/Trading-places–New-patterns-of-international-trade

Where are economic prospects brightest?

Business leaders seeking to channel their investments toward the most prosperous markets should heed the clear message from our interviews with senior executives that Asia is increasingly seen as the region that will dominate world trade by 2020.
2020 vision: regional patterns of trade

Asia is a must, specifically China and India

The chief economist for a large European-based global manufacturer noted that an increased number of their key management meetings were now held in Asia as a signal of its importance — being in “Asia is a must if you want to survive,” he contended.

Our survey results also suggest that the Asia Pacific region will continue to be an extremely competitive export platform, with nearly half of Asia-based companies expecting to export more than 60% of their output in five years’ time compared with fewer than a fifth of companies in the Americas.

A key result is that India and China will drive the continued rise of the rapid-growth markets and, together, these economies will become more important to global trade than the US and Eurozone.

The emergence of new economic superpowers will lead to a resurgence in the concentration of global demand and will be an important consideration for exporters when making strategic plans for the coming decade.

Source: http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Business-environment/Trading-places–Where-are-economic-prospects-brightest-