Global Supply Chain Development
Corporate Training Program
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The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Global Supply-Chain is provided by Mr. Buck BS Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
Personal Profile
Mr Buck is a Certified Learning Provider (CLP) at Appleton Greene and he has experience in management, production and globalization. He has achieved a Bachelor of Applied Science IET/MET in Concentration in Operations Management. He has industry experience within the following sectors: Biotechnology; Manufacturing; Aerospace; Logistics and Technology. He has had commercial experience within the following countries: China; United Kingdom; Ireland and United States of America, or more specifically within the following cities: Shanghai; London; Cork; Minneapolis MN and Chicago IL. His personal achievements include: founded a corporation in 1991 and sold it in 2018 for $400m; entrepreneur of the year Ernst & Young 1998; entrepreneur of the year Ernst & Young 2004; built global manufacturing infrastructure and lead acquisition of 16 companies. His service skills incorporate: strategic planning; leadership development; supply chain; executive mentoring and merger & acquisition.
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(CLP) Programs
Appleton Greene corporate training programs are all process-driven. They are used as vehicles to implement tangible business processes within clients’ organizations, together with training, support and facilitation during the use of these processes. Corporate training programs are therefore implemented over a sustainable period of time, that is to say, between 1 year (incorporating 12 monthly workshops), and 4 years (incorporating 48 monthly workshops). Your program information guide will specify how long each program takes to complete. Each monthly workshop takes 6 hours to implement and can be undertaken either on the client’s premises, an Appleton Greene serviced office, or online via the internet. This enables clients to implement each part of their business process, before moving onto the next stage of the program and enables employees to plan their study time around their current work commitments. The result is far greater program benefit, over a more sustainable period of time and a significantly improved return on investment.
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. All (CLP) programs are implemented over a sustainable period of time, usually between 1-4 years, incorporating 12-48 monthly workshops and professional support is consistently provided during this time by qualified learning providers and where appropriate, by Accredited Consultants.
Executive Summary
Global Supply-Chain
Over the last three decades, the progressive liberalization of cross-border transactions, advances in production technology and information services, and improvement in transport logistics and services have provided firms with greater incentives to fragment production processes and to geographically delocalize them. Global supply or production chains (GSCs), where cost reduction strategies result in goods often being produced with intermediate inputs originating from several countries, are now common in many industries and extend over to an increasing number of developing countries. From an economic standpoint, the emergence of GSCs is related to the concept of comparative advantage. By relocating production processes (i.e. R&D, concept, design, manufacturing, packaging, marketing, distribution and retailing) in different countries, transnational corporations (TNCs) can take advantage of the best available human or physical resources in different countries, with a view to maintaining their competitiveness by augmenting productivity and minimizing costs. For developing countries and their enterprises, the potential opportunities from joining GSCs are substantial. Indeed, integration into GSCs has become an important pillar of their policies for export-led development. GSCs enable producers within the chain to obtain modern management know-how and hands-on information on quality standards and technology, and thus to become more competitive. Such producers also quickly learn about demand patterns in high-income markets and consumer preferences in such markets. Participation in GSCs could also create economy-wide externalities for developing countries, such as employment, improvement in technology and skills, productive capacity upgrading and export diversification into more value added. In turn, those externalities would increase their attractiveness for more foreign direct investment. These potential gains explain the acute interest of policymakers in many developing countries over ways to link their private sectors to GSCs. However, GSCs are fundamentally a business strategy of TNCs, and are driven by their own business interests. Low labour costs alone are not a sufficient justification for relocating a part of TNCs’ production processes. GSCs also rely on sophisticated and competitive networks of goods and information flow. Participating and upgrading along the chains require not only manufacturing skills but also a sound business environment that are often lacking in developing countries. GSCs have different structures depending on three main factors: (1) the geography and nature of linkages between tasks in the chain; (2) the distribution of power among lead firms (TNCs) and other actors in the chain; and (3) the role of government institutions and policies in structuring business relationships and industrial location.
The first factor, the geographical structure, is determined by the extent of fragmentation of production processes and by their delocalization. While the extent of fragmentation is generally specific to the sector, the choice of where to delocalize production processes depends not only on production and trade costs but also on the potential size of the domestic/regional market, as well as on the proximity to high-income markets. The extent to which local markets are integrated with regional/international markets both in regard to trade policies and infrastructure development is also important.
The second factor, the distribution of power among the various firms of GSCs, is reflected in the different organizational structures of GSCs. Their structures can be classified in terms of the relational linkage between the buyers (lead firm) and their suppliers of manufactures. One extreme is the case of vertical integration where some of the manufacturing stages are directly owned by the lead firm while certain parts and components may be bought from contract suppliers. The other extreme is the case of a contractual relationship at arm’s length, where buyers do not necessarily know and do not own their suppliers. Numerous types of ownership structures can be found anywhere within the wide spectrum of the buyer-supplier relationship. The third factor is related to government intervention. Governments play an important role in facilitating the integration of domestic firms into GSCs. Governments have often recurred to trade policies to increase the competitiveness of their enterprises, especially by seeking preferential market access. Indeed, by lowering trade costs trade policies can help to integrate domestic firms into GSCs. However, trade policies although still important are not sufficient in the GSCs business model. The removal of behind-the-border trade-related barriers is also necessary. Moreover, policies aimed at improving the overall business environment are essential to facilitating the integration of domestic firms into markets that are increasingly dominated by GSCs. The first two factors do not pose policy implications and are largely dependent on the business model of a specific economic sector. Therefore, the special focus of this paper is to provide some insights on the third factor so as to see how government institutions and policies, particularly trade policies, may influence the participation of developing country enterprises in GSCs, including progressive process and production upgrading and export value addition with economy-wide effects.
Trade and Economic Policy
Trade policies directly affect the integration of domestic firms into GSCs in two major ways. First, trade policies can add to the cost of inputs. Excessive tariffs on intermediate products make countries less attractive to global investment and are detrimental to the localization of production processes. Second, unfavourable market access conditions would put assemblers in a position of relative disadvantage when distributing final products to consumers. To minimize this cost, lead companies generally prefer delocalizing the last blocks of GSCs in countries with duty free or preferential access to final markets. This is one of the reasons why preferential trade agreements improving access to developed country markets are important determinants in the localization of production processes. Another policy response is illustrated by the WTO multilateral Information Technology Agreement (ITA), which eliminated MFN tariffs on a wide range of computer-related equipment (including semiconductors and software), as well as telecommunication and certain office equipment. These goods represent a crucial flow of international trade amounting to about US$4 trillion. Today ITA has 73 WTO members States, including both developed and developing countries, and covers about 97 per cent of world trade in information technology products. Trade policy is often directed to protect final products rather than intermediate products. This provides an advantage to the localization of the last blocks of production processes in consumers’ markets. The relatively lower tariff on intermediate products provides a greater incentive to import them (and thus to be produced in developing countries). On the other hand, the higher tariff on final products provides an incentive to localize assembly in large (or potentially large) consumer markets, or in countries enjoying free access to consumer markets. This trend, where tariffs increase along the production chain, is generally referred to as tariff escalation. Tariff escalation is often used to provide an advantage to domestic firms engaged in the assembly of the higher value added final product rather than in the provision of low value added intermediate products.
Overall trade policy is captured by two indicators: effectively applied tariffs imposed on intermediate products, and those tariffs faced by final products. The overall business environment is measured by the World Bank’s Doing Business Index. This Index provides a measure of various aspects affecting the business environment, including government regulations such as for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, enforcing contracts and closing a business. Although all of these indicators normally ameliorate with the growth of GDP per capita, they are also positively correlated with participation in GSCs. Countries with economies more integrated into GSCs tend to have more open trade policies, face lower market access restrictions in high-income markets (the main location of lead firms), and have a more conducive business environment. The reason for the correlation is that the effectiveness of business models behind GSCs is highly dependent on the above variab