About Ed Marsh

Ed Marsh has in-depth experience on a number of continents, in various capacities and industries. He founded and managed a start-up in India; successfully built channels throughout Latin America; leveraged his German birth and marriage to a German national in his extensive work in Western Europe and has deep cultural experience with Vietnam. Ed's B2B and B2G pan-global experience has involved a variety of products and services including capital equipment, industrial automation, distribution services and homeland security and defense technology. He is a Founder and Principal at Consilium Global Business Advisors.

Getting in the Global Mindset

April 2, 2012 By Ed Marsh Leave a Comment

Did you realize that the typical German “mittelstand” company (like our SME/SMB designation) exports to 16 different markets? And yet only 5% of all American companies export according to Department of Commerce statistics – and that includes multinationals and the F1000. Further, of that 5%, approximately 70% only export to either Canada or Mexico. Only our most elite 1.5% of companies export to more than a couple NAFTA markets. But we import without hesitation..

Our import activity, of course, contrasts dramatically. We are import experts! Not just in the trite way (everything comes from China) but technically too. America has some of the world’s foremost experts on supply chain management and sourcing. Combining engineering, logistics, statistics and management, these disciplines have evolved into mind-bendingly complex fields which yield incredibly sophisticated tools for management. And supply chain management provides real financial benefit to businesses and often is a competitive differentiator. In contrast with rare export activity, import savings and efficiencies are frequently realized by SMEs – even quite small and otherwise unsophisticated businesses. [Read more...]

Filed Under: General Business, Global Trade, Supply Chain Planning

Learn Where Your Knowledge of the Market Ends

March 26, 2012 By Ed Marsh 2 Comments

Different perspectives

My German partner and I were now nearly toe-to-toe. Ten minutes ago the discussion began about the construction of the pallet/crate, the lack of 4 side access that I had specified, and the exorbitant additional trade show drayage charges we incurred as a result.

Possessing of nearly every stereotypical attribute (I was born in Germany, am married to a German, and have been told often by my German colleagues that I am “more German” than they are – so no offense intended here!), though, he wasn’t going to relent, and proceeded to list my technical shortcomings and the folly of my position. It couldn’t possibly be that 2 side access was in any way inadequate. And when I asked how he planned to get it off the truck, with a huff and puff he exploded “Just roll up the side and…” and he stopped.

We looked at each other and realized – despite each of our substantial experience in the others country and culture, we had committed a rookie mistake. We had each completely overlooked the fundamental regional differences in truck design (and the resulting differences in crating considerations.) I saw the world as a hard sided, back door, structured environment, and he saw it as a soft-side, side-load, flexible wonderland. (An ironic inversion of our stereotypical roles!) [Read more...]

Filed Under: General Business, Global Trade

Logistics From a Business Owners’ Perspective

March 5, 2012 By Ed Marsh 4 Comments

Did you ever wonder why most forwarders advertise themselves the same as every other? Are they all exactly the same? Of course not. And yet so often their pitches are identical. But as a business owner I’m savvy to that, and I’ve developed a “secret” method of evaluating a potential service partner.