|
|
|
By Ms.Sunny Wang |
|
|
As long as China joined WTO, more and more multinational companies have invested in China. Their business activities become localized, i.e., the management, people, production and purchasing are all localized. They began to establish the regional headquarters, R&D center and global purchasing center in China. Here, I would like to discuss about the chances that the global purchasing brings to us. The statistics show that more than 70 multinational companies have located their regional headquarters in Shanghai and among which, 37 have built their global purchasing offices here. Shanghai is trying to attract more global purchasers and suppliers, and to become a purchasing center worldwide through 3 to 5 years effort. By the end of 2010, the purchase value of multinational companies should achieve USD50 billion, and this number was approached to the GDP of year 2000. The powerful domino effect of the market is making Shanghai a cornucopia for global purchasing. Based on these figure, we believed that many sensitive professionals must have realized the great opportunities facing them. Global purchasing is becoming a new hotspot of the career market. In fact, when the multinationals just entered the Chinese market, they usually sent senior purchasing people to China from abroad. Most of these people were from Southeast Asia. However, along with the business development, further understanding of the local people and the long-term problem of high cost, they began to consider the localization of the purchasing operation. For example, in the 2003 International Sourcing Conference Shanghai, we found most of the purchasing representatives are not foreigners but local Chinese. To be a representative of multinationals, you must have the professional knowledge and rich practical experience. We must learn how to grasp the opportunity when it comes. Based on our experience, when a multinational choose its purchasing people, integrity is an extremely important factor besides the professional skills and ability. Backhander, which is not allowed in multinational companies is rather popular in the local companies. So multinational companies usually conduct strict background and reference check to their candidates. Once they find any problem, they will immediately reject the candidates even if they have remarkable achievements. In fact, compared with western countries, we are still far behind at the purchasing people’s qualification, training and certification. The problem of lacking professional purchasing person will become obvious as time goes by. The purchasing people’s market should have much room to develop. |
|
|
|
|