Smerwick is a trading company leaded by Laurent Solomon and located in Shanghai and Taiwan. It outsources production to subcontractors and sell them to distributors and importers worldwide.
Their major activities are:
• General trading worldwide (over 25 countries)
• Trading & Sourcing in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and South East Asia.
• Packaging design and follow up.
• Quality Control, production & shipment.
Its shares were mainly purchased by the French group U10 (which now owns 72% of Smerwick shares) and gives to Smerwick.
The creator: Laurent Solomon's portrait
Laurent created Smerwick group in 1982. He decided to sell shares to U10 because he thinks they both have a strategical synergy thanks to their complementary competence: design of range vs manufacturing and export.
The main shareholder: U10's portrait
They have no role in the operational part but they have on strategical and financial part. Moreover, they represent 25% of Smerwick clients.
The U10 concept is to create specialized product lines developed around household and personal leisure goods and accessories.
The Group has two business divisions:They have no role in the operational part but they have on strategical and financial part. Moreover, they represent 25% of Smerwick clients.
The U10 concept is to create specialized product lines developed around household and personal leisure goods and accessories.
- Full Services (76% du CA) : Primarily focused on French distributors, this division provides a high level of sales and logistics services: regular visits of merchandisers and sales representatives, direct and rapid deliveries of small quantities to points-of-sale.
- Full Container (24% du CA): Smerwick is a part of this division, consisting of companies operating out of China and Spain. It proposes turnkey merchandising lines to importers and major accounts on a worldwide basis. The ‘full container’ division processes unit orders involving larger volumes than those for ‘full services’ with longer delivery periods on a full container basis to the customer’s own logistics platforms. The manufacturing of products is insured by subcontractors the activity is trading.
We can say that, one of the activities of Smerwick is to be U10 buying office in Asia.
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My first week
During my first week in Smerwick I tried to understand how the company works, the different department, how responsibilities are divided, and finally to let me have a clearer view of their products they shown me their showroom …
At the same time, if one of the girls had work for me she asked me to join so that I can understand how the ERP system works, and how to filled paperwork such as a purchase order, a sale order...
Basically, as in all internship this first week helps me to have a better understanding on how the company is organized and which people do what.
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My mission for June
On Monday my manager ask for me to join a meeting and give me my first mission.
He told me this : We are going to develop bathroom range (all the item for bathroom and all the items can be the accessory inside for decorated the bathroom…) with customer you are in charge of it. I need all the information and quotation before 05 July.
I have decided to divide my work in 2 parts:
- First of all I need to get some information from French market.
Sourcing the internet and filling the quotation. (with photo/ price/description with size details).
I check on French website like Carrefour / Auchan ….. all the super market/hyper market/ store or any shop for bathroom items.
My first problem was that because I am in China some website are not accessible so I had to install a VPN to access French websites
- Then I need to check which factory make similar item. So I had to source the maker from website and then I had to contact them asking them to fill a quotation file with photo/ price/description with size details and carton details --volume .L x W x H…
The next step was for Kelly (my manager) to do. She contacted clients sending them our own quotation with the trendy product I found.
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My factories visits
One part of my work is to visit factories, to check their products quality before they ship goods to our customers and to maintain our links with them.
This is why this last month I have been to Guangzhou, Jinhua, Xianju, Sanmen, Ninghai and Huangyan…
In this article I will tell you about my most interesting visits.
Guangzhou
For my first factory visit I went to Guangzhou. I met my colleague, Evie, at 6:30am in Hong Qiao airport to land, 2 hours later, in the middle of nowhere!
There we have been welcomed by two men from the factory in a big car and one hour later we finally arrived in the factory.
During 5 hours we have checked each part of the product (children stools and curtains) then we have negotiated with the factory for them to make changes we asked without any extra fees and with no delay in the shipment.
Jinhua
For my second factory visit I went to Jinhua with Yolenda, and other colleague. This time we took the train so I was reassured about eventual delays… but as you will understand it later I was wrong!
When we arrived in Jinhua, because of the raining season no road was passable (as you can see from the picture below). Since 1955, this city has no experiment such a flood!!
Then when we arrived at the factory 2 hours later (instead of half an hour), we checked with our maker the quality of the product with this time a little staging: as the client did not know the final customers we told the factory director that I was from France, representing the final customer and my colleague translate our conversation because the factory director did not know how to speak English.
That was really interesting because he tried to explain me that their manufacturing cost had increased because of the rate exchange and the material cost increasing but I had to explain him that even if it increased he has to finish the order at the price we had agreed.
You have to be very patient and very diplomatic because you have no legal appeals in China even if you sign a contract, the factory can just stop working for you and you won’t have your money back!
2 days trip to: Xianju, Sanmen, Ninghai and Huangyan.
This time I took the train with Kelly, my manager to spend two days in the Zhejiang province.
During those two days we have visited 8 local factories we did not know thanks to 2 men that we hired as traders. They come from this province so they know small factories which have no website and that do not go to fairs. Those two points are very important because it means that our final customers cannot find our products by themselves so they need us.
During those inspections we were looking for their production capacity, their products we can offer to customers and more importantly if they were trustful.
After we will ask quotation (size, price…) to makers we are interested in, offer our new products to customers and finally order if necessary.
Every time we will order something our traders will take a commission and keep the tax refund because we do not have a license to ship goods.
For sure I took time to enjoy the wonderful landscape of this area where mountains go alongside with rice fields.
To concluded this article I must say that everywhere I have been I always was gently welcomed by kind person greedy to know occidental people even if sometimes their habits are far away from ours...as those following picture will illustrate it !
