When Asian Procurement Teams Fail, Domestic Supply Chains Pay the Price
Why Domestic Supply Chain Performance Suffers When Foreign Teams Lack Accountability
When companies seek to improve global supply chain performance, attention typically falls on three areas: foreign suppliers, foreign procurement teams, and domestic supply chain operations.
In practice, most performance improvement efforts stall at the supplier level. Our experience suggests this is a mistake. Across nearly a dozen industries, we have repeatedly observed that underperforming procurement teams in Asia—rather than suppliers alone—are a primary driver of rising inventory costs, strained domestic teams, delayed strategic initiatives, and organizational burnout.
Below, we outline three common ways underperforming procurement teams in Asia create downstream operational and financial strain, issues many executives now recognize as no longer sustainable.
What Procurement Team Underperformance Looks Like in Asia
Poor-performing suppliers are easy to identify. Underperforming foreign procurement teams, however, are far more difficult to diagnose. The symptoms are often qualitative and easily conflated with the inherent complexity of operating supply chains in low-cost countries.
In discussions with companies across a wide range of industries, we consistently see the same characteristics when foreign procurement teams are underperforming. These symptoms tend to cluster around information quality, process discipline, and problem-solving capability.
While underperformance can take many forms, it rarely shows up as a single failure. Instead, it manifests as persistent operational friction. Ultimately, procurement teams in Asia must be dependable extensions of the broader organization and capable of supporting corporate strategy. Anything less introduces unnecessary cost, risk, and poor execution.
Symptoms of Underperformance
- Failure to provide timely, actionable information to guide supply chain decision-making
- Persistent skepticism or lack of trust in the accuracy of information shared with domestic teams
- Failure to anticipate issues, leaving supply chain leaders in a reactive posture
- A high rate of recurring issues, either internally or with external suppliers
- Inability or unwillingness to follow established SOPs, forcing domestic teams to rely on workarounds
Higher Logistics and Inventory Costs Due to Lack of Visibility
Production lead times, on-time-in-full (OTIF)performance, and freight consolidation decisions sit at the core of supply chain cost control. When this information is incomplete, outdated, or unreliable, domestic teams are forced to plan defensively rather than efficiently.
In our experience, companies supported by underperforming procurement teams in Asia consistently incur 10–15% higher logistics costs and 20–30% higher inventory holding costs. The drivers are predictable: underutilized containers, fragmented shipments, and inflated safety stock levels designed to compensate for poor upstream visibility rather than true demand risk.
Today, operational visibility is not a “nice to have”—it is table stakes.
Today, operational visibility is not a “nice to have”—it is table stakes. Weekly production forecasts and accurate CBM reporting are the minimum requirements to book freight efficiently and control working capital.
When foreign procurement teams cannot reliably provide this level of visibility, uncertainty becomes embedded and avoidable cost turns into a permanent byproduct of a legacy foreign procurement operating model.
Low-Value Transactional Work Trap
Do domestic supply chain leaders consistently receive and trust the information shared by procurement teams in Asia, or are they forced to rely on workarounds—contacting suppliers directly for confirmation, documentation, or conflict resolution?
In the United States, excluding major metropolitan areas, the fully burdened annual cost of a Director of Supply Chain typically ranges from $235,000 to $275,000, compared to less than half that for a lead procurement professional in China. This labor arbitrage is the economic foundation of globalization. Yet in organizations with underperforming foreign teams, highly compensated domestic leaders still spend significant time chasing basic information.
These workarounds undermine organizational efficiency, waste scarce leadership capacity, and erode the financial logic of global operations.
Highly compensated domestic leaders still spend significant time chasing basic information.
In one engagement, our firm reviewed six months of communication between a large importer’s domestic supply chain team and its foreign suppliers. We found that nearly 70% of all communication consisted of low value work that could have been automated, standardized, or handled by lower-cost teams closer to the source.
Organizations caught in this low-value transactional trap consistently meet fewer strategic objectives while incurring higher supply chain costs. This is not a supply chain design problem, but a failure of foreign procurement teams to act as the tip of the spear—owning supplier communication and translating local activity into usable, decision-ready information. When foreign teams cannot manage even basic transactional work, their strategic value is fundamentally diminished.
Perpetual Firefighting Leads to Burnout
Trade wars, shipping disruptions, and geopolitical instability create long nights and uncertain days for supply chain leaders. These macro risks affect nearly every importer and, importantly, can be planned for and mitigated.
The stress of not knowing whether information coming from your own team in Asia is accurate—or repeatedly addressing the same preventable issues—is fundamentally different. When foreign procurement teams underperform, domestic supply chain teams absorb the impact, often finding themselves stuck in a cycle of perpetual firefighting. Over time, this dynamic leads to organizational burnout.
In the United States, turnover among supply chain professionals is nearly twice the national average, while turnover on foreign procurement teams is often significantly lower. In many organizations, this imbalance reflects an accountability gap: teams in Asia operate with limited oversight, often benefit from plausible deniability around poor performance, and see fewer consequences than their domestic counterparts.
This gap contributes directly to burnout on domestic teams, driving higher HR costs and delaying strategic initiatives. Recruiting, training, and onboarding new supply chain leaders is time-intensive, with payback periods often exceeding twelve months. The result is fewer strategic milestones achieved and diminished credibility—both internally and with suppliers—amid a revolving door of leadership.
Foreign teams in Asia should not be treated as a sacred cow, but held to the same standards, accountability, and expectations as domestic supply chain teams.
While burnout has many causes, companies experiencing chronic supply chain turnover should take a hard look at the role their foreign procurement teams play in shaping organizational culture and performance. Foreign teams in Asia should not be treated as a sacred cow, but held to the same standards, accountability, and expectations as domestic supply chain teams.
Final Thoughts
Despite their lower comparable wages and smaller staff sizes, procurement teams in Asia have a disproportionate impact on downstream operations. Companies looking to implement meaningful improvements in global supply chain performance must critically evaluate how their foreign teams operate and whether those teams are truly aligned with broader corporate objectives.
Too often, foreign procurement teams function as lightly supervised cost centers rather than accountable extensions of the business. Taking a hard look at their effectiveness is not an exercise in oversight—it is a strategic lever for improving execution, reducing cost, and restoring organizational confidence across the supply chain.