EMS and Strategic Planning

My article in the August issue of Circuits Assembly magazine looks at the question: Can market research help investment decisions?

Electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers vary widely in the effort put into strategic planning. Some have dedicated strategic planning functions that develop internal reports and presentations on changing market dynamics and purchase market research for specific industries as part of the company’s overall strategic planning efforts. Others buy packaged market research studies or outsource specific research needs prior to developing strategic plans. Some companies center on trends within their internal customer and prospect base, focusing planning on the likely needs of the market they know best. And a few just go with the flow, reacting to customer requests but otherwise not engaging in any form of strategic planning.

Based on my experience, the right answer is somewhere in the middle. I’ve worked in companies so fixated on studying the market they grew more slowly than they would have had those resources been allocated to sales and marketing activities. In some cases, “studying things” actually became a way to avoid making hard decisions. I’ve also seen companies that failed to do any strategic planning surprised by market or technology shifts.

One thing to remember:

If you are not positioning your company, the market trends or your closest competitor will be.

You can read the full article here.

We’ll also be exploring strategic planning and EMS trends in much greater detail in PMCI’s half day workshop at SMTAI:

Identifying EMS Market Trends: Learn to Predict the Future and Help Your Company Lead the Pack

SMTA International, Rosemont, IL
Sunday, September 25 | 1:30pm — 5:00pm

Topics Covered Include:

• Typical cycles which repeat in the EMS industry
• Key events likely to trigger changes in demand
• Useful strategic planning tools
• Creating business models which can readily adapt to changing markets.

The early bird deadline for registration is Aug. 26. Register here.