BW Beer Group Glass Packaging Purchasing Management Strategy Study

China replaced the United States in2003as the world’s largest beer market; also it is themost competitive market. Chinese beer annual sales are over40million tons; meanwhile mostof the European and American market are already saturated or even shrinking. China is anideal target for international capital. After ten years fighting, snow, Tsingtao, BW Beer Group,Yanjing formed the first class of Chinese beer industry. Recently, BW Beer Group(abbreviated BW) has built4large breweries in2011, and acquired Henan Weixue3breweries. Furthermore, BW acquired Asia Brewery Group shares owned by Philippines,which is following the Carlsberg holdings of Chongqing beer, snow "drink" Kingway.In the ground of the domestic beer industry growth slowing, homogeneity competition,China will eventually be carved up by a few largest beer groups. So, the main Beer Groupsorganize resources at all levels for the acquisition, expansion. Cost savings throughpurchasing synergy is an important part of enterprise management. Especially nowadays,supply chain and supply chain management theories appeared, and it aroused the interest inprocurement management. Beer glass packaging which mainly means bottles as one of themost important packaging materials is taken into the view of the author. Glass packaging isnot only the historical container, but also important and favorable packaging in countries. In aglobal view, the glass packaging market is growing in recent years. China is the world’slargest glass packaging producer and consumer. China’s beer production and consumptionhave been more than40billion liters, and glass packaging still account for about90%.2011to2015, China’s glass packaging production will increase annual growth rate of6%in theaverage to15.5million tons, only less than paper products, rather than plastic containers andmetal products.Based on the understanding of BW glass packaging material requirements, this paperaims to explore some methods of how BW manages its procurement of glass packagingmaterials. In order to better reflect the real market situation, the author visited Huaxing GlassGroup (the largest glass bottle manufacturing enterprises in China), OI Glass (the world’slargest and China ranked2nd), Suokun Glass Group (the largest glass manufacturer inNortheast of China). At the same time, I visited some small and medium-sized enterprises,access to a large number of first-hand information and materials. This article will analyze BWglass packaging materials procurement needs and concerns, understanding the marketsegmentation of glass manufactures/production processes/cost structures, summarize thecommonalities and differences between beer glass packaging industry and other types of glasspackaging industry. It summarizes glass packaging materials manufacturing industry new developments. Based on the analysis of characteristics of glass packaging industry and itsdevelopment trend, using the eight-step process tool, Porter’s five forces model analysis andSWOT analysis, we will explore and draw some procurement guidance and methods for BWglass packaging purchasing from four dimensions: the total cost savings, supply security,quality insurance and innovation.