Sourcing from china - the challenges of Swiss companies

Global sourcing and especially sourcing from China is growing rapidly in importance worldwide. This is also true for Switzerland. This paper presents the challenges facing Swiss companies of different sizes and depth of experience when sourcing from China, based on a case study of 8 companies. The 34 challenges are structured along a global sourcing process and the type of distance (psychic or geographical). The results show that severe problems remain not only in areas that attract current research interests, but also in areas that are well-established in literature. Scholars therefore face the double challenge of enhancing the state of the art in research, as well as transferring effectively already established concepts into the industrial practice.