All Roads Lead to China: Business News, Analysis, and Insights from China

I know I am running a couple weeks behind on this one, but many of you probably heard the news that Foxconn had another incident. An incident that involved 2,000 employees, 5,000 police, and a security guard.  A security guard that reportedly hit a line worker, which then turned into a full on riot. As […]

Apple is committed to driving the highest standards for social responsibility throughout our supply base. We require that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made. This is the FIRST paragraph for the 2012 Apple Supplier Responsibility report (download here) […]

A great clip from Jon Stewart on Foxconn, and a timely one given Apple’s recent revelations that its supply chain is still a clusterfu*k, Apple makes over a billion USD a day in profit, and in one of the last meetings with President Obama Steve jobs made it clear that Apple’s outsourced supply chain would […]

A few weeks back I was asked to speak at the BMW Europe Asian Young Leaders Forum on “How do cities organize communal life and maintain social harmony? What can business contribute to these processes?”  It was the week after EXPO, and everyone was in Harmonious society mode, but in developing what I thought were […]

For long time readers of All Roads, you will know that one of the topics i have follows has been related to the systemic issues apple has faced within its supply chain. it is a topic that in the last few days has come to a head with the near daily suicides occurring on Foxconn’s […]

Over the last couple of years, one of the firms that has popped up on the radar of firms whose labor conditions I felt were at some point going to come back to haunt them… and I think we have come a bit closer with the above CCTV report, an 11 and a half minute […]

This afternoon I was asked by someone why I am involved in CSR and sustainability.  It is a question that I seem to asked frequently, but one that I am not sure I ever answer with any measure of clarity as I have worked in a very wide range of issues related to these big […]

News of a 25 year old committing suicide at Apple’s primary China supplier (Foxconn) has once again brought to the front burner the difficulties of managing outsourced operations, and the risk to the brand that these arrangements bring when improperly managed. It is a situation that sadly I believe could have been avoided, and that […]