McCormick+Schmitz Handbook for value chain research on - PACA

Such differences emerge clearly if you ask your respondent to use a five-point-scale <strong>for</strong>
each of the above criteria. Give him or her a blank copy of Table 11.1 and ask them to
place your country (region) and the other relevant countries (regions) in the relevant
boxes. This table and the related figures use actual findings from the footwear industries
in China, India, Brazil and Italy, but the same techniques can be used in the garment
industry.
The resulting in<strong>for</strong>mation can then be entered into a star diagram (see Figures 11.1 and
11.2) in which each arm represents one of our criteria. (Note that you can reduce or
increase the number of criteria.) Linking up the scores then gives you a radar chart of
each region. The combinations in which these charts can be used and compared are
many. For example, you can compare how US versus European buyers assess your
region, using in each case the average score of the respective group of buyers. The key
step, however, lies usually in putting the radar chart of your region on that of the directly
competing region. It reveals at a glance – to you and your audience – the respective
strengths and weaknesses.
Figure 11.1, <strong>for</strong> example, compares the per<strong>for</strong>mance of India and China showing that
India’s main deficiency lies in quality and punctuality. Or take Figure 11.2 which shows
that Brazilian producers out-compete Italian producers in terms of price (no surprise) and
punctuality (small surprise), that they can match Italy in terms of product quality (big
surprise) but are far behind in terms of innovative design (no surprise). These examples
are taken from Schmitz and Knorringa’s (2000) paper ‘Learning from Global Buyers’.
An early version of this paper, including the questionnaire, can be downloaded from
www.ids.ac.uk/ids/global/valchn.html. The paper also stresses the limitations of using
buyers as a source of comparative in<strong>for</strong>mation on producers.
The use of this simple and effective technique has been simplified further – with regard to
data processing – by recent versions of the software programme Excel. Go to Insert →
Chart → Radar.
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