Swedish Electronics Retailer – Chinese Operations Supply Chain ESG Strategy
The client, a Swedish electronics retailer, had substantial sourcing activities in China with a local team tasked with handling the client’s suppliers and other logistical issues. In recent years, with changing customer sentiment toward a greater focus on sustainability in business operations and ESG compliance, such as in emissions and controls over child labor, the client found it necessary to draft a supply chain ESG strategy to monitor and align their Chinese operations. Adding to the urgency of this task, the European Union (EU) was tightening regulations toward EU companies’ global supply chains to ensure better environmental and human rights protection. Non-compliant companies would run the risk of incurring substantial legal liabilities.
The client faced a complex issue in drafting this new supply chain ESG strategy due to the physical distance between the client’s headquarters in Sweden and their Chinese operations. This presented a host of challenges in communication, monitoring, and control.
ARC Consulting, with extensive experience in China, a skilled team of consultants, and a track record of formulating ESG strategies, was well positioned to provide the client with the necessary expertise to help them build a new and effective supply chain ESG strategy for their Chinese operations.
As a first step, ARC Consulting reviewed the client’s current Chinese operations in full to gain detailed information about these operations’ composition and conditions. Based on the findings, ARC Consulting worked closely with the client to outline the vision of the new supply chain ESG strategy.
In the next step, ARC Consulting formulated a strategy with a roadmap and detailed goals to help measure the entire project’s progress. The ultimate aim was to help the Chinese operations become more integrated into the client’s European ESG strategy and increase the client’s ability to monitor these operations to maintain and improve the group’s overall ESG performance.
Finally, after drafting the strategy, ARC Consulting managed the entire project for the client from beginning to the end. Specifically, ARC Consulting coordinated resources for the project, monitored the progress of the Chinese operations in realizing the new ESG strategy, provided coaching services for their staff to ensure strict adherence to the strategy, and improved the internal reporting structure between the client and their Chinese operations to increase the client’s monitor and control capacity.
After six months of investigating and implementing the new ESG strategy by ARC Consulting, the client’s Chinese operations made substantial improvements in ESG performance. In addition, the strategy also helped the Chinese operations to become more aligned with the client’s overall ESG goals.
In addition, the client was impressed with the internal reporting structure that ARC Consulting had helped improve. Thanks to this, the client was able to communicate to the customers about their high performance in ESG, improving sales figures in the process.
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