As India plans to become a global manufacturing hub, a contract manufacturer of major Chinese smartphones here has said that while it becomes an “inevitable trend” for smartphone and other tech players to set up manufacturing bases outside China, the process is “not a transfer, but rather a copy of China’s supply chain”.

DBG Technology Co is a contract manufacturer for major Chinese smartphone brands including Xiaomi, Honor and Huawei Technologies Co, reports South China Morning Post. Xu Yusheng, board secretary of DBG, said that the key incentive for setting up manufacturing capabilities in countries such as India and Vietnam is a reduction in tariffs.

In a world where cybercrime is evolving at a rapid pace, the role of a cybersecurity professional is one of constant vigilance and high stakes. As the volume of data increases exponentially, the vast majority (83%) of cybersecurity professionals say they are struggling to cope with the sheer volume of security alerts, with IDC data revealing that this can lead to missed cyber threats as well as difficulties recruiting and retaining staff in a sector that is already experiencing skills shortages.

The repercussions of an enterprising cyber attacker gaining access to critical data including private financial and medical data or industrial control systems can be severe, meaning the security team’s job is often a pressurised and difficult one. This is made all the more prevalent as migration to the cloud increases and the mobile workforce continues to dissolve the network boundary beyond its traditional office-based confines. This is when ‘alert fatigue’ can have a disruptive part to play in proceedings.

Despite global uncertainties, Vietnam’s economy is recovering at a considerable pace post-COVID-19. As per the World Bank (WB), Vietnam’s GDP growth in 2022 is projected to reach 5.5 percent from a low of 2.6 percent in 2021 due to the pandemic.

However, challenges remain as the consumer price index (CPI) has been steadily increasing to a seven-month high, recorded at 2.4 percent in March, a rise of 1 percent compared to the prior month.

The upsurge in prices has been primarily driven by production cost spikes, which have resulted from a severe shortage of input material for manufacturing across industries. In fact, mainstream industries are faced with another challenge after COVID-19: surging costs and input shortages, exacerbated by supply chain disruptions.

China’s imports of most major commodities were unabashedly weak in June, but the soft outcome is more of a history lesson than a pointer to future demand in the world’s biggest buyer of natural resources.

Crude oil imports slumped to a near four-year low in June, coming in at 8.72 million barrels per day (bpd), down 19% from May and 11% below the level in June last year, according to data released on Wednesday by the General Administration of Customs.

For the first half of the year, crude imports are down 3.1%, while exports of refined fuels have slumped 40.7% from the first six months of 2021.

Imports of natural gas through both pipelines and as liquefied natural gas (LNG) dropped 3.9% in June from May and 14.6% from the year earlier month, to be down 10% in the first half of 2022.

The onslaught of ransomware attacks has catapulted cybersecurity to the forefront of global business operations. However, just over a third (36%) of mid-sized organisations still do not have a formal incident response plan in place, according to Egnyte’s latest Cybersecurity Trends for Mid-Sized Organisations Report.

Egnyte, a specialist in cloud content security and governance, has released its Cybersecurity Trends for Mid-Sized Organisations Report, a mid-year update to its Data Governance Trends Report.

The number of nation-state and data exfiltration-based cyberattacks continues to increase, which has emphasised the need for organisations to re-examine their cybersecurity preparedness. According to the report, incident response plans are not prevalent enough, with 64% of mid-sized companies having a formal incident response plan in place.

An in-depth report into investment opportunities in supply chain suggests the fragmented tech services market is ripe for private equity investment, to drive scale and value in established companies.

It also details how Industry 4.0 technology is crucial for improving supply chain resilience, and that last-mile logistics is another area in which there is capacity for long-term growth.

It also highlights the need in organisations to strengthen and transform the supply chain, and how this is putting stakeholders under pressure to re-evaluate their strategies for long-term success.