Abstract
China's domestic supply chain networks are getting flat and unbalanced despite its spectacular growth and rise to the enviable position in the global supply chain arena in recent times. The aftermath of continued investment explosion, especially in the coastal areas of the mainland, calls for an interwoven relationship of Chinese companies with the rest of the global supply chains. However, with new information and communication technologies, the real-time problems arising from this flattened supply chains are much more complex, multifaceted and multidimensional. China needs to re-think and re-focus on better alignment to the western values and cultures while managing its global business activities. This paper discusses four recently developed enterprise models in the light of several case studies conducted recently in Australia, China and India to characterise these new flat supply chains: People-Centric, Molecular Organization, Globally Dispersed and Disaggregated Value Chain. These, apparently different but inherently similar models have a vibrant architecture and system behaviour in their core and propose an alternative approach to address challenges of unbalanced domestic flat supply chains in China and helps the Chinese manufacturers to explore an approach to embrace Western values and cultures by enlarging their sphere of influence.
Highlights
The world changes a lot in an hour if not in minutes
In a disaggregated value chain, the cash flow originating from a project and/or business opportunity or a major transaction gets dissipated through a human network of networks and cascades down the line to the individuals or groups who happen to be the ultimate beneficiary of the transaction
The comparison table was drawn based on the features of four new models that were developed based on field studies conducted during 200809 in Australia, China and India with various enterprises ranging from Multi-National Enterprise (MNE’s), SMEs ( Small and Medium Enterprises), Privately Owned Entrepreneurs (POE’s) (Personally Owned Enterprises) spanned in these countries
Summary
The world changes a lot in an hour if not in minutes. Demanding and aggressive customer expectations change. In a networkcentric configuration of modern enterprises, knowledge workers are able to create and leverage information to increase competitive advantage through the collaboration of small and agile self-directed teams (Van Alstyne, 1997). To cope with these changes, the new, “flat” world is one where technology and collaborative economies have fostered equity in access of information for everyone working in the same business. As China is benefiting from picking up the latest information technologies, the flattened world seems to have further flattened in China with the windfall of many new opportunities This is a wake-up call to the West to better understand and respond to the enormous competitive threat posed by the Chinese manufacturers. The nervous system of our tiny global village is nothing but a finely threaded human network of networks - all pervasive and globally dispersed enveloping the society, economic and business
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