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Mattel’s Chinese Sourcing Crisis of 2007

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Mattel’s Chinese Sourcing Crisis of 2007
Mattel’s Chinese Sourcing Crisis of 2007
Regarding to this case study there are three parts involved, which are the Mattel Company and the Chinese manufacturer, the regulation party of Chinese authority and the governments of America and China. To each part it relates to one of the issues that involve in this case study.
The first issue that was found in this case is the reputation crisis of Mattel worldwide and its sourcing failure.
The failure of their partner of using over level lead paint is the starting point of series of recall. It leads to the reputation crisis of Mattel product, thousands of parents are concerning about the safety of the toy their children are playing, lawsuit are made to against the failure of Mattel.
Mattel is the largest toy company in the world, and it has been practicing the outsourcing policy from China for decades due to the cheap cost of labor and intensive production there. Mattel and its Chinese suppliers had maintained a partnership over decade. Due to the trust toward to the Chinese partner, Mattel has lost its regulation to the Chinese supplier.
However due to the increasing cost of the labor and material of production, the manufacturer has no choice but to switch to a lower cost material to replace to maintain their profit. Rather to blame the evil mind of the manufacturer in China, the rising price is also one of the key factor which drive them to lost their ethics after so many years of cooperation with Mattel.
The second issue that involved in this case it the Chinese government failure of regulation
Due to the failure of Mattel in China, it caused not only the crisis of Mattel Company but also the product made in China. Zheng Xiao Yu, the head of Chinese State Authority who is responsible to ensure of the safety of Food and Drug was found of taking bribes to approve inferior products. The transparence of government censorship is obviously needs to be improved. In a result, People are less trust about China

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