October 10, 2009
Posted by Serus in Uncategorized.trackback
Transforming the Supply Chainby Jim BoettcherThe Web 2.0 world is built on interactivity, immediacy, and social networking. Creative individuals are using this collaborative platform to foster innovation and launch a new wave of unique products and services, many of them taking shape as crowdsourced or prosumer ideas. These, as well as the innovative product ideas of entrepreneurs, are increasingly being commercialized through highly effective, decentralized supply chains based in China and other emerging markets. Clearly, the world just keeps getting flatter. The distance from customer to producer is growing narrower, and the efficiency of nimble, next-generation supply chains keeps increasing. Innovative, customer-centric ideas in markets ranging from apparel to electronics are only a click away, and smart entrepreneurs are turning them into commercial successes with remarkably low capital requirements. |
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| China supply chain specialist (and Focus portfolio company) PCH International is a key platform enabler for many of these new concept to customer opportunities. For several successful companies, PCH has literally facilitated the conversion of a product concept sketched on a napkin into tens of millions of dollars in revenue within months, all with minimal capital investment by the inventors. PCH, however, doesn’t own factories in China. It owns manufacturing relationships that enable extraordinarily fast cycles for product development, manufacturing and order fulfillment. PCH’s relationship-driven model also lets the company provide value-added services for its customers, such as Pure Digital, for whom PCH designed, sourced and shipped directly from China a complete line of accessories for the wildly successful line of Flip® digital video cameras, significantly increasing Pure Digital’s overall gross margins and thereby enhancing the company’s valuation in its recent acquisition by Cisco. Tighter supply chains; faster product creation and order fulfillment; dramatically lower product development costs; higher margins. All compelling trends indeed, enabling innovative entrepreneurs with great product ideas and leaders in product design, manufacturing and online commerce to develop and adapt new business strategies specifically suited to a flatter, leaner, web-based economy. |
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