Buying Office
We help our clients with their specific strategic sourcing or quality needs to manage aspects of their Asian supply chains at the source. This unique model provides a dedicated team that can be established upstream in the relevant sourcing jurisdiction with a range of capabilities. The solution is a cost-effective, flexible and low-risk way of managing your suppliers.
What We Do
Leverage an ET2C client account team to maximize the benefits of a buying office in Asia, which provides an upstream sourcing and quality capability. This delivers transparency that helps drive a deeper understanding of your Asian supplier base and allows for greater supplier penetration, diversification and control.
Our Process
Assess your needs
We undertake a strategic assessment of your current supply chain, and in-house resource and capabilities.
Proposal
We identify where there are gaps in your capability and then relate this to specific functions and roles. This proposal will include costings, critical path, set-up requirements, recommended locations and any other elements that make the solution right for you.
Team
Once we have an agreed way forward, we build out the team, undertake training and then implement the solution once we have everyone ready and on board!
Management support
We are continually providing updates and giving advice where we see additional opportunities. This is really about partnership and understanding your needs as much as we can. This means periodic catch-up and reviews are constant feature of the service we provide.
Bespoke solutions to fit the needs of your business
A Team Aligned With Your Sourcing Needs
We ensure that the expertise within the team specifically addresses your upstream needs. Whether there is a need for a buying office in Vietnam or a buying office in China or, in some cases, it may be a split between the two as part of a China plus one strategy, we source and identify the required capability and knowledge at a personnel level. We also encourage the dedicated team to understand your broader business context, retail environment and internal methodology so that they are better positioned to deliver against your expectations.
Cost-Effective & Scaleable Solutions
There are also additional networks (via our Ecosystem) and expertise that can be tapped into should it be relevant through our different departments, such as our merchandise, quality and logistics teams. This can be particularly beneficial across different sourcing jurisdictions where we can quickly provide comparative costings or insight into new markets.
We use a flexible charging structure that minimizes the cost versus the benefits that our clients can leverage. This further drives margin and profitability growth. We also look to untap potential cost advantages of paying in local currency should it be relevant and understand the export mechanism within certain markets to ensure that you are getting the best possible product cost.
A Local Presence Is A Must
There is no alternative to having local, on the ground, capability. Where it can sometimes be prohibitive to establish your own presence (legal entity), then selecting the right partner will help alleviate the risk, leverage product and operational expertise and provide the visibility that you require to manage your suppliers.
Even what is assumed to be simple can be difficult to overcome such as language and cultural hurdles and the different time zones (particularly for US companies). We have experience of this and a high level of communication is at the core of what do and the service we deliver.
We recognize every client has different needs. We look to tailor our solutions to your individual requirements. Whether it is setting up a buying office in India or creating a dedicated team in Shenzhen, we are here to help you source from Asia in the most cost effective and transparent way. Having operated in Asia for almost 20 years, we understand the complexities of doing business in this part of the world. We know the pitfalls and we know the ‘real’ costs of operating in China, Vietnam and India. We are therefore uniquely positioned to partner with companies who want to leverage our capability and experience.
Interested In Our Buying Office Services?
Request your free quote today to find out how we can benefit your business needs.
We have offices currently across China, Vietnam (HCMC) and India (Bangalore)
But we are always looking for new opportunities and strategic hubs. For example, we have established remote teams around strategic hubs before for clients to provide a local presence in proximity to a particular supply base. Contact your nearest ET2C office and we would be happy to arrange a meeting/call with you.
Case Study: The Benefits of ET2C's Buying Office Solution
A large listed UK retailer with scale and a sourcing resource was looking to drive down product costs from China. Even with its own Hong Kong base, they partnered with ET2C to quickly establish their own dedicated team, which delivered net product cost savings of 20% in year one compared with their incumbent sourcing partner.
ET2C helped our client access a market and drive significant benefits. The client is still with us almost ten years later!