Same ‘quality’…different place?
posted by Glen Stidolph in Outsourcing |
Far be it from me to suggest that as China responds to global criticism for poor quality goods, artificially low currency and precious little regulation by the introduction of new Chinese labour laws that took effect on Jan 1st which has significantly raised costs in an already tight labour market, as well as Beijing’s cancellation of preferential policies for exporters which has hit Chinese manufacturers hard, corporations are starting to pack their bags.
With the cost / quality playing field now starting to flatten, lets hope that many of the corporations who outsourced to China for the ultra low costs, start to ‘smartsource’ to more mature destinations or will the ‘false god’ of ultra low labour costs cause us to consider over the next year or 2 where Thomas the Tank engine again be derailed? cars crashing due to exploding tyres? (do you remember those) and your pet dog has to employ food tasters again? Will it be Vietnam, India, Myanmar? One thing for sure, its not going to be Malaysia, who long ago went through the kind of industrial restructuring that China is now beginning to experience and has coincidently recently seen a significant rise in FDI, or is that just plain wishful thinking?
