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North America (3 countries) phone: +1 925.932.4958

 

Test your skills

This test has been on the Internet for more than ten years. Most procurement professionals find it difficult.

Cultural skills

1. In which country are decisions most likely to be made in a top-down fashion? 

  U.S.A.
  Japan
  Sweden
  Mexico

2. In which country are people least likely to say 'no' or give bad news directly?

  Germany
  Japan
  United Kingdom
  Mexico

Legal Skills

3. There is a United Nations-sponsored contract that will often apply automatically to an international purchase of goods unless you automatically exclude it. What is the name (or what are the initials) of that contract and the treaty that created it?

 


4. What is your best protection against a developing-country supplier pirating your intellectual property?

 

Currency skills

5. What is the name of the financial instrument that will keep the cost of goods purchased with a price in another currency stable against the buyer's currency?

Example: You (who are not in Japan) agree to buy parts from a Japanese supplier for 120 yen per part. Delivery is six months from the date of order. You order on a day when the exchange rate is 120 yen per unit of your currency. How can you be sure that the supplier gets 120 yen and you pay very close to one unit of your currency regardless of what happens to the exchange rate in the intervening time?

6. If you use the above instrument to stabilize prices and you buy less product than you forecasted, will your unit cost be higher or lower than you expected?

  Higher
  Lower
  It depends

Logistics Skills

7. You are in the United States and buy goods from a Korean supplier. The term of purchase is under the Incoterm "CIF Oakland, California." Freight moves by ship from Korea to Oakland. Who bears the risk of loss during ocean transport?

  Buyer
  Seller

8. How long does it take the fastest container vessels to travel from Shanghai to Los Angeles? Or Shanghai to Bremerhaven?


  Los Angeles   days
  Bremerhaven    days

Sourcing skills

9. This question is U.S.-centric. What is the easiest way to determine the countries that export the most of a given product to the United States?

 

10. What is the typical percentage markup that a typical overseas subsidiary of a foreign company adds to a $10M purchase?

 

Did you find the quiz challenging? Please consider some training before working with suppliers in other countries.

If you would like to comment, please go to our Contact page.


What countries are the most globalized?

 

Generally, the most globalized countries are small. Singapore, for example, imports and exports three to four times its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year.

Big economies such as the United States and Japan import and export only around 20% of their GDP. If the European Union were one country, it would show as exporting and importing only around 17% of GDP.

There's more to globalization than trade, of course. But trade brings more face to face contact, more understanding of different cultures and additional requirements for business skills.

Here are the top ten countries in trade, from the magazine "Foreign Policy." Data is for the year 2007. The numbers are different from the paragraphs above. That's because the magazine counts both goods and services, while the paragraphs above count only trade in goods.

  1. Singapore 456.0%

  2. Hong Kong 385.0%

  3. Malaysia 223.2%

  4. Belgium 168.3%

  5. Estonia 165.2%

  6. Slovak Republic 160.0%

  7. Thailand 148.9%

  8. Ireland 148.7%

  9. Jordan 145.1%

  10. Vietnam 141.7%
    11.

And the least trade? It's not just big countries. While most countries who trade a lot are small, many small countries do not trade a lot.

Here's the list, from the same source. These are the lowest of the 72 countries the magazine measured.

  1. Pakistan 43.6%

  2. Peru 43.6%

  3. Greece 41.7%

  4. Bangladesh 41.2%

  5. Australia 40.6%

  6. Colombia 40.0%

  7. Japan 28.2%

  8. Brazil 26.3%

  9. United States 26.2%

  10. Algeria 11.1%
    11.