By Charlie Laughtland
BDA blog editor

BDA strives to be the best in all facets of the promotional merchandise business: pricing, on-time delivery, innovation and quality and safety.

We look to our suppliers and partner factories to assist us in each of these areas on a daily basis. To better align with our overseas associates, today BDA is hosting our fourth annual Compliance Partnership Conference at the Nanhai Hotel in Shenzhen, China.

Following industry shifts in global compliance legislation in 2010, the focal point of the conference will be safety, quality and evolving best practices within the BDA supply chain. BDA COO John Rostas and VP of Import Ron Alessandrini have a full day of training planned for the 200-plus attendees representing more than 50 factories.

"Matters of product safety aren't treated simply as business principles by BDA. Rather, this is about lives, risk management and protecting our clients' brands," Alessandrini said. "This year's compliance conference brings together the brightest minds in the business to ensure only the safest products leave through our factory doors."

Members of the BDA Import team will share recent project case studies and best practices for quality assurance, diverse manufacturing opportunities and cost-savings initiatives. To further emphasize our commitment to enforcing the highest standard of safety and quality, BDA compliance experts will be on hand to educate attendees on recent domestic and international product safety regulation changes and how they impact projects with BDA.

In addition to the quality and safety sessions at this year's conference, BDA will again host a vendor summit showcase, providing an additional opportunity for vendors to interact in a face-to-face forum with the BDA Import team members and collaborate on concepts to create the best new merchandise lineup for 2011 and beyond.

The summit will highlight all aspects of BDA—from the company's core values to our 10 business channels—in an effort to foster deeper partnerships and a greater understanding of the business.

No other organization in the promotional products industry offers a similar commitment to ensuring across-the-board quality control and safety standards through supplier education.

"Through our partnerships with qualified overseas vendors, BDA continues to evolve, innovate and create new and better product," Alessandrini said. "It is BDA's responsibility, as the leading global distributor of branded merchandise, to take a proactive approach to educating our partner factories."