China is a rapidly emerging major market for U.S.-branded goods. The Chinese middle class alone comprises 350 million people and is growing rapidly. Other Asian nations are also developing rapidly, making Asia the largest growth market by far of any region in the world. These Asian current and future customers will be important to your company’s global sales. Your manufacturing strategy should take this market and others into consideration before you make location decisions. A multi-region manufacturing strategy is the most popular approach.
Gathering and analyzing market data and determining key trends is critical to manufacturing location and localization decisions, particularly for consumer products. For example, you may be manufacturing and selling mint-flavored toothpaste in the U.S., and tea-flavored toothpaste in Asia. Localization decisions related to culture and taste may be obvious, while other localization decisions are not. You may want to produce a low-end product for the developing Chinese market and a more sophisticated, precision product for the U.S. market. You should take into account your entire product line and the perception of quality for your products in the global marketplace before making such decisions.
