LIFE Book Review
hen readers join Paul Midler in “Poorly Midler also maintains that Chinese factories lure companies in
W
Made in China”, alarm bells are sure to ring. to set up shop by lowering entrance prices and being seemingly
A consultant for companies trying to enter accessible and safe; however once these companies are in and the
China during the height of the export manu- Chinese managers know it will be too expensive for companies to
facturing boom, Midler recorded his experi- pull out, that’s when the problems begin. “Factories will squeeze
ences and turned them into a businessmen’s long and stressful until the breaking point,” said Midler to CHaINA. “Then when
worst nightmare. You keep expecting him to end at least one chap- the camel’s back is about to break, there’s a begging back and
ter with “… and then I woke up.” But he never does. the relationship goes back to the beginning.” This is perhaps one
Midler’s book has gotten a lot of attention since its publica- of “Poorly Made in China’s” greatest weaknesses. It provides no
tion last year: both raves for his honesty and complaints about solutions and no alternatives to the seeming back and forth rut
his narrowness of scope. Both are valid. However, in light of yet that these companies are stuck in. “[Chinese factories] are taking
another round of high- advantage of what should
profile quality problems be a rather respectful,
like cadmium in children’s honorable cultural condi-
jewelry and the resurfacing tion,” Midler continued.
of melamine in dairy prod- “But the alternative of a
ucts, his message is - for company pulling out and
better or worse - resonant. going somewhere else is
There’s the shampoo and generally too expensive
body-wash factory where and risky.”
workers stick infected While the information
hands into barrels of hair in his book is nothing nec-
gel and slyly tamper with essarily new, the way these
shampoo formulas to save embarrassing stories are
money. There’s the factory directly told and unabash-
which has skimped on ma- edly critiqued is oddly
terials, turning out hazard- refreshing. Midler told
ous scaffolding equipment. CHaINA that oftentimes,
Another group arrives to companies are too proud
scout factories, only to find or embarrassed to discuss
themselves in the back of a their problems. “There’s
shed. As bizarre things continue to go wrong over and over again, a reality in China that people don’t like to talk about,” reflected
you get to thinking that perhaps Paul Midler is trying to drive Midler. “Everyone wants to pretend that everything is fine. We
home a very specific point. Indeed, when asked about his inspira- have a huge question mark in China and no one is saying any-
tion, Midler says he basically got tired of repeating himself. “I thing because what do we tell consumers? That there is a 1 in 100
started to realize I was giving the same advice to companies over chance that their child’s toy is poisonous?”
and over again,” said Midler in a recent interview with CHaINA. What saves Midler and his book from being just one long and
“I thought I should put all my experiences into a book so people angry rant is the way Midler often lapses into tenderness and un-
knew what was going on.” derstanding for the Chinese culture which has
Midler’s book, half comic account and half exasperated dis- given him so many headaches. In this, many
sertation, breaks down his view of the Chinese factory owners’ people who live in China can relate to the
psyche. For instance, he asserts that Chinese manufacturers do not experiences of this foreigner navigat-
necessarily maintain the mantra of “the customer is always right.” ing the perils of Chinese business.
They do not necessarily think that long term relationships should There are so many problems that
build trust. They do not necessarily see the wrong in counterfeit. we face here, and yet it never
These ideas permeate his explanations as to why companies run goes far enough to com-
into quality fade, delayed shipments, lack of transparency and re- pletely drive us away.
luctance to correct mistakes.
With more quality controversies exploding into the news, CHaINA took an-
other look at the advice Paul Midler gives in his book “Poorly Made in China”
60 MARCH/APRIL 2010 www.supplychains.com
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68