August 2nd, 2006
David Bush - Iasta
Below is a summary posted by my friend, Eran Fastman, a VP at Mashik in Israel. Mashik and Iasta have been partners for almost 3 years and I correspond with Eran weekly, at a minimum. A little while ago, I sent a note to see how he was doing in the mist of the difficult situation in the Middle East and he replied with a response that was good to read regarding his safety and interesting regarding the supply chain industry. Eran added some background information for people to get an understanding of what the business environment is like in war conditions. This is also pertinent with our previous discussions on supply chain risk and performance.
Hopefully, this conflict will be resolved soon as there are clearly no winners.
Entry Filed under: General, Global Supply Issues/Risk
August 2nd, 2006
Eran Fastman
Background
Mashik of Tel Aviv, Israel, is Iasta’s partner in the Middle East. As one of the premier Industrial Engineering & Information Systems consulting companies in the Middle East, Mashik’s purchasing division delivers services for purchasing organizations for leading companies in most of sectors such as: finance, defense, food & beverage, chemicals, pharma, telecom, government, transportation, textile, hi-tech etc.
While using Iasta SmartSource, Mashik’s purchasing division has done over 2 billion $ of E- Sourcing projects in over 200 categories. Other services includes: Strategic Sourcing, Spend Analysis, Sourcing, Goals & Measures based on Balanced Score Card methodology, Building Tenders and Services Spec, Process Improvement in the Purchasing Organization, Purchasing Outsourcing Services.
Accounts under fire
Since the war started by July 17th, northern Israel bombarded by rockets, at rate of 100 a day, life has changed dramatically. Over a million people can not go to work. A lot of them left there homes and moved to the south. Due to those conditions, most of the businesses in the north are closed. The industrial companies can not import raw materials and can not export the goods since Haifa port is closed.
Mashik’s accounts in the north includes: Oil refineries, Israel Electric Company, Haifa Chemicals all located in Haifa bay which is under fire on daily basis.
Since the Oil Refineries are strategic target, which cause large explosions if the rockets hit them, they stopped the production processes in the plant. This situation affects 2 major projects that Mashik team managed: the purchasing division chemicals transportation project and for the sales division: e-Auction for selling chemicals for international buyers.
The global buyer’s responses for the delay of the selling auction were very sympathetic and understanding, but the Oil refineries lost selling opportunity in Million’s of USD.
This is just one example of the war’s affect on the economy. Most of Mashik’s accounts are affected from the war even if they are located far from the fighting zone from several reasons: employees are drafted to the army, losing revenues from northern clients, and export/import expenses are raising because of Haifa port is closed. These are real life supply chain issues from a war zone.
Mashik Team
Our team which includes highly trained professionals is also affected by the war. A few employees were drafted, and we had to do adjustments in order to sustain high level of support to our clients.
The mission in the days to come until the war will end is to work on building strong support to our clients, which means also providing help for urgent needs, even on personal level.
Eran Fastman
VP Marketing & Purchasing Division Manager
www.mashik.com
Entry Filed under: General, Global Supply Issues/Risk, e-Sourcing Marketplace
