Lowe's Global

After lunch we went to the Lowe's Global office to meet with Mr. Scott Jenkins, Director of Asian Sourcing. That was a great visit because he really didn't give us a long presentation but let us set the direction of the visit with our questions. He was a very good presenter, a natural and gave us some great insight what it's like to be an ex-pat here in Shanghai and what it's like to do business here.

Lowe's doesn't have a retail presence in China, like Home Depot, but instead they are the supplier for Lowe's. They are merely a representative office with no income and they only fulfill purchase orders placed back in the states. Lowe's China acts as the intermediary between factories in China and the Merchandising team in the US. It's Mr. Jenkins job to get the contracts to get the products built and shipped to the states.

It was interesting to hear Mr. Jenkins discuss how they enforce quality in the products, especially after the visit with the Embassy people. With the Embassy visit, we discussed how Matel had problems with their toys. They had Quality Assurance (QA) procedures in place, even bought the right paint for their Chinese manufacturers, but still they got in trouble. It as because their QA procedures weren't good enough. Lowe's, on the other hand, are much more aggressive in ensuring quality in their manufacturers and in the QA procedures. They have quarterly and annual visits and the second that a factory shows problems, they could be dropped if they don't fix it. This is partly because factories over here apparently work almost hand-to-mouth in their operations, they don't have a lot of cash on hand to keep operations going. So, if some company like Lowe's tells them that they are being dropped, they go out of business. That gives Lowe's a certain power.

Working as an ex-pat, Mr. Jenkins had some very interesting insights. He said there are two options for living abroad - you go hard-core and live among the ex-pat community, or, live Chinese by living in a high-rise. He chose the Chinese way and lives in a high-rise. He also has an office rule that English should not be spoken in the office to make him feel better. That's because he's the only American in the office. So, he lets people do their jobs and then just backfill him in on what is going on.