Why we established In Asia Advantage

While working in China in various senior supply management roles we observed many times the benefits of controlling supply at origin. This was particularly reinforced when working for a top 10 Australian retailer and for a large USA consumer goods company. These two organisations established a local entity and built a local team responsible for coordinating supply activities at origin. They made this investment for one obvious reason: it worked! The cost of employing team members in China was significantly less than at home and local people were more effective than people trying to manage supply remotely from afar.

​At the same time, through friends and acquaintances, we observed many cases of sub-standard supply resulting from inadequate control, managing remotely from destination without any resources on the ground at origin. These remote management structures often are a major contributor to the stories we all hear about China supply catastrophes, e.g. money paid upfront, no goods received, critical promotion order shipped too late, whole shipment not fit for purpose and written off and costly re-work performed at destination.

​Of course, even with the best controls, bad things still happen but, with on-the-ground management at origin, occurrences are less and able to be corrected earlier with less impact.

Because of resulting the disruption and cost arising from lack of control at origin, we wondered why so many companies were prepared to buy from China without implementing sufficient control.

We came up with the following reasons:

• They had always managed their supply chain remotely and did not know that there was a better way.
• They were often sales/customer driven companies (which is a good thing) that were not strong on process.
• They had no appetite for establishing a company-owned operation in another country.
• There was a reluctance to delegate tasks offshore without adequate leadership.
• The requirement for control was high but it was not always a full-time need.

As a result of the above, we realized there was a need for an outsourced platform to allow effective on-the-ground control of China supply in a targeted and cost-effective way. We established In Asia Advantage to meet this need with following objectives:

1. To educate overseas enterprises of the benefits of managing supply locally.
2. To provide a platform for flexible and agile local management without the need to establish a local entity.
3. To provide leadership ensuring 100% alignment with the requirement of overseas clients.

Since establishing back in 2012, we have stayed true to these objectives and have steadily increased our capability and our value-add. We now have operations in multiple Asia jurisdictions and are expanding further as we meet the evolving needs of our clients.

Please reach out to our team for further info. We would be please to explain to benefits of effective management at origin and how we can help deliver effective supply improvement solutions.

In Asia Advantage

In Asia Advantage specialises in helping brand owners & retailers achieve supply-led competitive advantage. We are Australian owned and operated, established since 2012, with a wholly owned subsidiary office in Ningbo, China. Our unique expertise combined with on-the-ground resources enables us to design and implement effective China supply improvement solutions.

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