Henrik Pontoppidan, Director of S2U Design, talks about the email that should never have become your problem.
A useful disaster
A few months ago, my website, www.s2udesign.com, was hacked. For a few days, it looked like exactly what it was: frustrating, expensive and very badly timed.
The homepage was gone, and much of the architecture behind it had disappeared. After six years online, I had to rebuild the entire website from scratch.
But that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Rebuilding it forced me to ask a necessary question: What do global buyers actually need when importing from Vietnam?
For 15 years, I was one of those buyers.
When something went wrong in Vietnam, I did not need explanations or excuses. I did not need factories to export the problems — and the responsibility for solving them — to my inbox.
I needed a solution.
That became the basis of the rebuilt website.
“Unfortunately…”
You know the email. Halfway through production:
Unfortunately, our lacquer supplier is no longer able to supply the compound for the current production run.
Five days before scheduled loading:
You requested desiccant bags (anti-moisture) in the RFQ. Unfortunately, we have never used them and do not have a supplier.
Two days after the deposit is paid:
Unfortunately, the wood specified is no longer available with FSC.
You are probably thinking: You are the factory. Deal with it.
Instead, with professional etiquette — and because there is little else you can do from the other side of the world — you ask clarifying questions. The answers may explain why the factory is stuck, but they are vague, not verifiable and they don’t bring you closer to a solution.
An everyday factory problem has crossed the world and landed in your inbox.
From my perspective here on the ground, it is remarkable how often the solution is right in front of us. It becomes evident during a factory visit I can make at any time, while remaining almost impossible to identify confidently through weeks of emails and Zoom calls.
That is what the rebuilt website focuses on. Not a long lecture about why these issues occur.
When the next problem lands in your inbox, you now have an effective tool in your toolbox.
Prevention is better than cure
Resolving production problems is valuable. Preventing them is better. Every buyer wants the same thing: a production setup that delivers competitive advantage.
While rebuilding the website, I realised that one assumption throughout traditional sourcing is upside down. Factory selection normally begins with the question: Which factory can make this product?
But engaging with an able factory for the defined product is not the same as engaging with the one that delivers competitive advantage.
So, the services on the website are all founded on starting with the customer: the aspirations, intentions, volume, positioning and expectations.
Then the product details: design, drawings, construction and materials.
Without this understanding, the factory criteria remain loose, and a large number of factories appear suitable. With full customer and product understanding, most of those factories disappear from consideration.
Where is your weakest link?
If you import from Vietnam, you are already covering the entire sourcing process in one way or another:
Brief – Product Specification – Product Development – Factory Selection – Sampling – Production – QC/QA – Shipping.
Every “unfortunately…” email can be traced back to one of those stages.
If several of the problems landing in your inbox can be traced back to the same stage, you have found your weakest link.
The rest of your sourcing setup may already work perfectly well. This is what the rebuilt website is structured around.
You can acquire one clearly defined service for the part of the process that needs strengthening. The intention is not merely to repair the weakness, but to apply enough attention and judgement here on the ground in Vietnam, turning it into one of the strongest parts of your setup.
You can remain in control of the wider process. I deal with the part that needs action here in Vietnam.
A tool for the next email
You now have a practical toolbox for intervening when problems arise and preventing them from returning.
In either case, the intervention will cost from a few hundred dollars while providing substantial and immediate benefits.
The next factory problem should not automatically become your problem simply because it arrived in your inbox. And subsequent problems should be prevented.
