Over at All Roads Lead To China, Richard has hit upon something that many bloggists and press pukes overlook with striking regularity: just because China's fortunes as an outsourcing darling are shifting/slipping/adjusting doesn't mean you can paint everything/one with the same brush.
The fact is, as Richard rightly points out, it's much more complicated than that. A macro view doesn't adequately offer the micro solutions that are called for. He asks that companies assess their positions by answering these 6 questions:
- What is your China platform?
- Where is your market?
- Where are your competitors?
- Where are your suppliers?
- Is your product high tech, or high labor?
- Were you previously compliment (with new Chinese labor laws)?
Boiled down to its most lucid point, Richard's premise is that the complexities of each company's supply chain dictates its vulnerability to fluctuating macro conditions. Reacting to the same conditions in the same ways could spell big trouble for companies that don't plan and navigate their own path through the shifting outsourcing waters.
