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employ its own sales force. In order to improve customer service
and reduce the lead time on product orders, the director of the
representative office in Hong Kong suggested to the Ophthalmic
Division of B&L Inc.11 in Rochester that B&L operate a warehouse
to maintain an inventory in Hong Kong. It was the understanding
of B&L that any office that maintained inventory in Hong Kong had
to be incorporated in Hong Kong.
The Ophthalmic Division of B&L Inc. decided to incorporate
B&L Hong Kong in 1972 for the primary purposes of distributing
sunglasses and other B&L products in Hong Kong and related
markets in Southeast Asia and improving customer service and
expanding B&L's business in Southeast Asia. In connection with
the decision to establish distribution operations in Hong Kong,
B&L considered Hong Kong's labor costs, its political stability,
its historic role as a trading center, any logistical difficulty
of managing the Asian distribution function from Rochester, and
the inadequacy of its marketing and sales in Southeast Asia, in
particular in Hong Kong, because of its reliance on independent
distributors.
From 1972 through 1981, B&L Hong Kong functioned, inter
alia, as a marketing, sales, warehousing, and distribution
facility that purchased sunglasses, contact lenses, contact lens
11 The Ophthalmic Division was one of two main divisions of B&L
Inc. at the time the decision to incorporate B&L Hong Kong was
made.
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Last modified: May 25, 2011