|
Page
2 of 2
For
downmarket, there is Indonesia and Thai
production, often organised and supervised
from a Singapore "competence hub".
Singapore provides what CEVA vice president
Elaine Low calls a "gateway option"
that dispatches lower value goods to locations
with large nearby markets with likely customers
as well as taking advantage of cheaper warehousing.
There
are parallel developments that kick in too.
Without much notice, infrastructure has
made great strides in these still developing
countries, making it affordable to reach
a wider range of customers and to deliver
what they produce to where it can be sold
more cheaply than ever before.
To
its traditional role of transshipments,
Singapore now "feeds talent into south
east Asia to support operations", said
Ms Low. Something akin to the "four
corners" strategy in the US is now
taking shape in Asia. In the US, warehouse
clusters are established in the north east,
north west, south east and south west US
corners (and lately in the centre too) to
hold large bodies of stock for quick regional
distribution when called upon by retailers.
This is happening with the "whole Asia
concept", which does much the same.
Ms
Low said Asia is vast, with big differences
in infrastructure and market channels. Managing
this requires know-how. "We look at
the Asian region as one region so we can
deploy people. We have to create different
plans to cope with the variety of problems
from congestion in China to flooding in
Thailand. Singapore provides the ability
to create a back-up plan," she said.
Medical
devices and pharmaceuticals also have high
quality needs. Medical device manufacturer,
Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) makes
medical devices - and spare parts - together
with support operations. BD supply chain
manager Min Yuan Seow said his company studied
options throughout Asia before choosing
Singapore. "The key criterion was efficiency,
the ease of customs which for medical devices
is essential...and the high quality of service
available from logistics service providers
who understand how to comply with standards
in handling".
Singapore's
big challenge today is cost. Singapore now
has one of the highest per capita incomes
in the world. Although in the past labour
costs and labour shortages have been mitigated
by importing workers, but this has become
a controversial and the government is moving
to limit the ability of companies to import
cheap labour.
For
logistics providers, shippers and manufacturers,
the factor that emerges one of the big differences
is the role of the state. "Political
maturity, cost management, inflation and
a serious pipeline of business drags you
back to Singapore," said a DHL man.
Customs
procedures are always singled-out as being
easy to use and responsive. Ms Desmicht
contrasted experiences in China "where
you are dependent on relations with specific
people. If people change, there are problems.
If there are changes in Singapore, you don't
have that risk. Customer service in customs
is very high".
The
speed of reaction, willingness to listen
to business and the ability to pull together
different parts of the state give Singapore
its strongest competitive advantage, they
said. The problem for the future is that
others will be looking to learn from Singapore's
example and they are likely to have the
advantage of price on their side. The city
state will have to keep running hard in
order to keep ahead, said Ti.
Page 1 2
|
