pRoFILES
Eric Cassagne Electric Markets
Supply Chain
Director Eric Cassagne has spent over eight years working in New World econo-
Schneider Electric mies, including India and the Arabian Peninsula. He is now on his third
year in China and today talks about the opportunities Schneider sees in this
growing market.
What do you see as the main differences in doing busi- same situations with transparency. More than transparency I would
ness between the different regions you have worked in? stress issues with traceability … [but we feel there will be] a real break
Actually all of these regions have common issues in terms of mar- through in the coming years.
ket behavior. For instance with the signal of the demand you have
very erratic trends of growth, with sharp peaks and curbs. This is al- How do you see China developing its supply chain structure in
ways true in these very project oriented countries. With development the near future?
comes a diffuse market but a very strong B2B market. To cope with Reaching a good level of consistency is important because right
such business environments as far as supply chain is concerned, we now it’s really a little bit unstable in terms of professionalism and
focus on the deployment of solid processes such as the collaborative quality of service. Obviously this comes from the fact that supply
forecast as well as sales and operating planning. As you can see, the chain is quite a recent function in China. Even Europe still has
supply chain role is really to be the bridge within the organization problems with efficiency if you remember last year’s French port
from the customer (marketing) up to the plant strikes. In the coming years, I think we will see
or vendors. In China, as far as distribution is a concentration of logistics as well as bigger lo-
concerned, you have the emergence of strong
players with national coverage, including inter-
It’s not easy
gistics services emerging into the market, both
local companies and joint ventures with inter-
national distributors who are picking up in the
to address
national players. All the big players are here. In
country. In India the distribution players are
this market
fact, one challenge with criteria of selection is
very scattered. In the Arabian countries I’ve
because
assessing the capability of even national play-
worked in like Saudi Arabia and Dubai, they
have mostly developed their supply chain phi-
it’s not yet
ers to address a global account and provide a
real consistency of multi services including the
losophy in line with the West and these coun-
mature
right information processes. In many cases,
tries are much smaller, so they are pretty dif-
but we are
international forwarders or national organiza-
ferent.
considering
tions rely on local branches – and as global ac-
Why is such a large portion of your compa-
the mid term
counts it’s difficult to rely on local branches. I
think the most I can predict is that in five years
ny based in China as opposed to the West?
and the long
time the information side of logistics will be
We consider Asia and China particularly as
term, not the
improved and consolidation will definitely hap-
a strong asset to the company. There is a huge
short.
pen more. I also think that universities will
market here – I mean, China and India are begin to turn out higher quality supply chain
within 5000km of each other, which means you majors. There is a desperate need for them in
have 35% of worldwide population right here. the market right now. A report I read says that
So in the long run it makes sense to be concen- there are about 7000 supply chain graduates to
trated in this part of the world. [This country] fit around 80,000 job needs. Hopefully, local
can also be used as our low priced manufactur- students will be able to begin to fill this need
ing department but our first priority for mov- for supply chain people in China.
ing out here was actually the domestic market
which shows some great momentum as far as What’s the hardest part of your job?
energy management and energy efficiency are On a daily basis, one challenging part of my
concerned. job is ensuring customer satisfaction. Chinese
customers are becoming more and more de-
Does Schneider have trouble with supply chain transparency ? manding and the company has to put out a lot of energy to meet
Things are definitely growing here step by step but there still re- our commitments and make sure we hear the voice of the customer,
mains room for improvement. In terms of transparency, we some- which is hard and needs humility and an open mind from us. The
times have goods that are damaged en route and we don’t find out voice of the customer is there to give us new challenges – and as
until we receive the damage report a week later from a customer, Chinese customers demand more it’s a challenge to develop in order
which can be embarrassing. In India we actually face some of the to offer both free and paid services that meet their wants.
www.supplychains.com MARCH/APRIL 2010 21
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