UPS Sponsors Growing SME Summit within Six Cities, Announces Four SME Winners of the Best Supply Chain Award
Beijing, Jan. 28, 2010 - Sponsored by UPS (NYSE:UPS), the Growing SME Summit, aimed at promoting SMEs' capabilities in financing and innovation, recently concluded. The summit was held in six major cities and attracted over 1,500 SMEs, including more than 500 venture capital firms and relevant departments in local governments. More than just a discussion of the current situation and future development of domestic SMEs, the summit offers a communication platform of resources and information on enterprises' finance and capital, technology and innovation, knowledge and talents.
Beginning in July 2009, the Growing SME Summit was successively held in six major commercial cities: Nanjing, Qingdao, Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. The SME representatives had face-to-face contact with experts in relevant fields and staff from governmental agencies who offered relevant consultant services covering aspects such as business management, financing and going public, and the supply chain.
As an important component of the summit, the Best Supply Chain Awards are given to four SMEs selected by a professional jury consisting of UPS and industry experts. The winners are given access to assessment services of professional supply chain solution offered by UPS experts.
At the summit in Beijing, a leader from Department of SMEs, MIIT said,"The Growing SME Summit sponsored by UPS was a great success, offering SMEs a rare opportunity to communicate with investment institutions on the strength of their unique operation mode. We hope that similar summits will be held in the future, facilitating the sound and fast development of SMEs."
Most of the SME representatives to the summit were from the pillar industries, traditional industries and emerging industries in the open coastal cities. 40% of the representatives were from traditional manufacturing, 30% from technology, and 15% from E-commerce, with the rest coming from other industries such as management consulting. As the backbone of SMEs in China, these enterprise representatives actively partook in a series of sections set by the summit, such as a roadshow, presentation and case sharing. They shared their views on enterprises' current business structure and operation situation with experts and venture capital firms to demonstrate their attempts in developing domestic and international market and maximizing operating efficiency as well as their need for the support from government and financing institutions.
Meanwhile, SMEs also expressed their common weakness and challenges they faced. Despite great development potential, they are often faced with bottlenecks, failing to translate their opportunity into reality. Specifically, the stress and challenges faced by SMEs come from three main sources:
- Enterprises have difficulties in finding financing. Though acting as the pillar for economic growth in Mainland China and even Asia, SMEs have difficulty in taking out loans from banks due to their lack of liquid capital and real estate. If the financing problem, faced by domestic SMEs cannot be properly solved, it may exert a negative effect on the speed and quality of economic growth.
- The need for innovation is growing. In light of the financial crisis, innovation capacity, as one of the key factors determining an enterprise's fate, is of overt significance in economic life. With strong mobility in the management system, high specialization of production and risk-taking impulse of pioneering, SMEs have unique advantages in fields like product innovation, market innovation and management innovation, which big businesses lack. Under the current situation, enterprise culture and the spirit of innovation is significant for stimulating the entire economic action, in which SMEs plays a vital role.
- Supply chain development is at a relatively low level. Currently, most domestic SMEs need for supply chain services is relatively simple. The services are concentrated mostly on phases of cargo transport and storing, with the basic aim of lowering transport and distribution costs. In actuality, optimized supply chain services in sourcing, production, transport and supply would allow products to flow quickly, stably and safely during every step of the transportation process. As to developing enterprises, it will be a deciding factor of their success for them to optimize the network of distribution and transport and to promote customer service and efficiency in using capital and asset.
In addition, risk awareness and leadership have also become factors that affect whether domestic SMEs can achieve further development and ultimately stand out. "China's 40 million SMEs have always been the object of our attention. In the era of economic globalization, it becomes particularly important for the development of SMEs to effectively expand markets, reduce costs and streamline operational processes," said Steven Wong, Vice President of Supply Chain Operations for UPS China, "By sponsoring the summit, we have found that innovation, financing and supply chain efficiency and cost have become the three main topics discussed by the majority of domestic SMEs with regard to future growth. At UPS, we believe that, with our full range of supply chain solutions and complete global service network, we can help Chinese SMES expand and achieve further growth."
At the growth-oriented summit for vast SME representatives, UPS has also specially established the "Best Supply Chain Award" to encourage SMES to describe the operational programs of their existing supply chain systems. Among the dozens of participating SMEs, four have won the "Best Supply Chain Award" with their characteristic supply chain system and successful operations. They are: Nanjing Jishan Lighting Technology Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Kefei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Haoneng Technology and youzigift.com. The UPS team of professionals will actively explore the business operations of the four winning SMES to diagnose the status quo of their supply chain operations and provide them with professional supply chain solutions.
Mr. Huang, General Manager of youzigift.com said: "I'd like to express thanks to the organizing committee for setting up this award and helping us find and solve the shortcomings and problems in our supply chain to optimize business structure. We are confident the UPS experts will provide us with professional supply chain solutions and appropriate supply chain financing advisory services to enrich our financing channels and address the inventory, cash flow and other related issues."
Chinese SMEs are the engine of China's economic growth, accounting for approximately 60% of the national GDP. Covering more than 99% of business in China and providing 75% of domestic employment opportunities, they have become an important driving force in the growth of the entire national economy. It has been forecast that, by the end of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2010), SMEs will account for 65% of the national GDP.
UPS has long been concerned about China's SMEs. As an annual regional business research proposal, the UPS Asia Business Monitor (ABM) has been issued for five consecutive years. The proposal is dedicated to reflecting on and analyzing the business requirement changes of SMEs in the Asian region. According to a survey in the latest UPS Asia Business Monitor, more than half of Chinese SMEs plan to diversify or develop new sources of revenue (64%), reduce costs (59%) and strengthen cash management (55%). The data shows beyond a doubt SMEs' attention in and adaptability to the current economic situation. They are willing to make the effort to enhance their enterprise's commercial value, control costs, and further upgrade enterprise competitiveness while ensuring smooth business development. In 2010, UPS will also publish the latest research report on the trends and challenges faced by SMEs in the Asian region as the trade reference.
In order to meet the growing demand of SMEs needs in supply chain and financing, UPS provides its clients with a full range of supply chain, warehousing and logistics services, in addition to constantly improving its global supply chain finance programs. Moreover, UPS has leveraged its industry-leading technology input and R&D advantages to launch a complete set of online tools for SMEs and e-commerce customers in particular. The tools help clients directly access online transport and parcel tracking, thus reducing costs and improve transport efficiency. As a result, SME clients are guaranteed the same level of service as UPS enterprise-class clients.
|
|
 |
UPS Pressroom |
|
|
Read press releases, announcements, and other media-related information about UPS.
|
|
 |
|
View History