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I had no idea that A fictitious case, “A QUITTING SUPPLIER,” which was invented in order to explain the concept of supplier management in procurement training, actually happened in my world many years later.

Early in the morning, I received an anxious email from our Finnish customer Olli: “Jenny, my supplier in China suddenly has to close down the factory! We have more than 100 sets of molds in their place, what can we do? I’m flying in next Monday. Can you go and talk with me? Do you have any recommended alternative suppliers?”

Olli only knew that the supplier who had cooperated with him for 20 years suddenly decided to withdraw from the business, possibly because the father who started the business was old and his son was not willing to take over. His concern was obvious, and I recognized the complexity of the matter.

On the high-speed train from Hong Kong to Dongguan, I kept rehearsing in my mind what I might encounter: chaotic factories, uncooperative suppliers, difficult negotiations… However, when I arrived at the factory, I was far from expecting what I saw.

The factory was quiet, spacious and tidy. The front is a large yard, left side is the mold room, the front glass curtain wall is the workshop, the right side is the office, the security guard is very polite to take us into the most spacious conference room, waiting for us is an elegant middle-aged lady, and a tall young man.

I could tell Ollie was familiar with them, and it was my first time here. The young man’s name is Andy. The lady’s name is Anna. Ole told me that Anna was the wife of the owner of the company and Andy was the son. “We have placed orders for a whole year, and these orders must be completed, otherwise the mold transfer will lead to the risk of supply interruption.” Anna promised to cooperate with the completion, but said that she could not give a specific completion time.

I couldn’t help but ask Anna, “Why close the factory?”

She sighed, looked at her son, and could see her face was not giving up: “We don’t want to close ah, but really can’t hold on.” We have hundreds of overseas customers by word of mouth, but most of our business comes from a Finnish company. In recent years, this big customer’s orders have decreased a lot due to the competition of Chinese brands, and the new purchasing director has introduced other suppliers to diversify the business volume. With fewer orders, it is difficult to support the small orders we make for other customers. We started losing money a few years ago, and we’ve been hanging on until now. We just can’t hold on anymore.”

I asked, “Have you tried to downsize or let customers know about your difficulties?”

Anna obviously did not think about this question, she admitted: “We have not said this to the customer, in fact, overseas customers are already very good, payment is always very timely.” But the challenge is still quite big, on the one hand, overseas customers have been lowering prices; On the other hand, none of the MOQ (minimum order quantity) I requested was acceptable, which resulted in low production efficiency and high cost. My husband is very tolerant to the customer, he comforted me, the customer’s demand is so much, we understand more. But the strange thing is, when we announced that we would close the factory, every customer suddenly placed a lot of orders, I have never seen the production line so busy, well, if we had half this volume, we would not have closed the factory.”

After a pause, she added, “My husband loves this business and is very good to his employees, but the business is not enough and should have been laid off years ago.” He is not willing to let so many old employees leave, and began to vigorously explore the Chinese market, the amount of Chinese companies is enough, the profits are thin and hard to say nothing of these, and finally can not receive money. Well, eventually there will be layoffs, and our severance packages will run into the millions. We could go out of business and leave our customers and employees alone, but we don’t want to do that.”

During the conversation, Andy always actively participated in our dialogue and expressed his own opinions. I found that Anna’s family had a different view of how the factory was run. Young Andy actually wants to take over the family’s business, and has his own ideas about business, but he has not yet been approved by his father.

“We don’t have a sales team, we don’t have a customer service team,” says Andy. “We rely on my mother to support our foreign customers, and my father spends all his energy on the domestic market. Before the epidemic, he also invested tens of millions of dollars in buying land to build new factories, buying all imported equipment. I think the money should be used to build a sales team and hold exhibitions, but now it is so difficult.”

Andy continued, “Employee performance has absolutely nothing to do with income. I came up with a detailed plan, and he didn’t even look at it and just said it wouldn’t work. I wanted to go to the fair, and he said no. “My father is totally tolerant of customers’ delinquent payment and has no rules for customers’ orders, which leads to high management costs for the factory.”

As he spoke, a black and lean man, Anna’s husband, walked into the conference room and greeted us very politely, saying that he was receiving a wave of customers these days, and that he was sorry for not attending our meeting in time.

After we said hello, I said we were listening to the story of your startup. This sentence opened up the conversation of Anna’s husband, and showed me a good entrepreneur who is hardworking, passionate about technology, inclusive of customers and caring for employees.

“Our customers are overseas customers, very demanding, we are invested in the best equipment, no equipment guarantee, we can not do the customer’s precision and stable quality requirements, I like to work with the technical team to solve technical problems, often late at night do not feel tired, I do not have any bad hobbies, entrepreneurship for so many years, I devote most of my time to my work. I spend little time with my family and wife. I go out early and come back late.

“This factory you are now, we bought the land, just built a few years ago, I invested a lot of experience in the construction of this factory, to the planning of the factory, small to the chair of this conference room, you see that the chair you are sitting on needs thousands of yuan…”

Look, I don’t seem to know if they really want to close this plant.

I asked him again, “Have you decided? Don’t you want to pass this on to the younger generation?”

He was silent for a while and said, “My son is not as tough as our older generation, so let it go.”

After we went through hundreds of sets of molds together, Anna invited us to dinner. The atmosphere of the dinner is very good, although Anna’s husband is not good at English, but he is better than the hand and foot to communicate with Ou Li seems to have no obstacles, Anna said that her husband has this ability, all overseas customers like him.

I had the opportunity to hear more of their entrepreneurial stories. Although the family still had different views on the management and future direction of the company, I saw Anna’s complete respect and acceptance for her husband and Andy’s complete acceptance for his father. During the dinner, I also saw my husband’s deep guilt for neglecting to accompany his family because of his entrepreneurship. This is really a loving family.

Finally Anna said, “It’s decided, and there’s no turning back. We plan to sell or lease the factory. The rent may be higher than the income from the factory. After closing the factory, I can finally travel with my husband, we have not been together for so many years.”

Her face was full of longing for the future. I suddenly feel that not every business needs to be successful, and it does not have to be passed on. Entrepreneurial experience itself is a kind of wealth, and life is worth enjoying, letting go is courage, but also another good start.

This is the only time this supplier has ever said “no” to a customer. For them, this “unbearable lightness” may be a relief, but also a new beginning.

And for our procurement, what kind of lesson is this?