Many importers who work with hardware suppliers in China have a great competitive advantage within their market thanks to a “unique” product. However, they are suddenly surprised by the “mysterious” launch of a product similar to theirs, by their main competitor. Then, they find that he used the importation records to determine the place where the product was manufactured, establishing relationships with his suppliers.
IBMHCORP: The best alternative to drive away competition
Keeping a secret manufacturing process is often very helpful when looking to buy hardware from China. The reason is that it protects the assets of your company from any attempt of imitation or damage by the competition. More and more customers are asking IBMHCORP to keep the manufacturing process secret for the following reasons:
- They do not want their competitors to know any details about the products they manufacture in China.
- They do not want their competitors to know the exact location of their hardware suppliers in China.
- They do not want other manufacturers to know where these products are made.
Many customers who decide to import hardware from China have been found with the terrible surprise that not only their competitor used the import reports to determine the place of manufacture of the product, he also manages an excellent relationship with his supplier and other hardware suppliers in China, who are not willing to refuse any business offer. That is why we often observe products from different companies but almost identical in the final result.
From IBMHCORP we recommend to those importers who want to buy hardware from China that the ideal is to maintain a balance between the transparency and the secrecy in the supply chains. A clear example of “extreme transparency” is the Nike giant, which enables everyone to know the factories where their products are made.
However, the choice between maintaining transparency in the supply chain to ensure the importer’s ethics to its consumers is difficult to maintain when trying to balance with undercover manufacturing. By hiding details about manufacturing, customers may think that the importer has something to hide, whereas if transparency is complete, competitors will always be ready to attack.
The final decision on the boundary between transparency and secrecy is defined by each importer. Therefore, in IBMHCORP the efforts aim to guarantee the quality of its products at the highest level, because with high quality products it is very difficult that the competition can be effective.
