Susan Mucha will be giving a presentation at this year’s PCB West as part of their newly introduced EMS Management Conference Track. There is still time to register.
Five-and-a-Half Technical Services Marketing Myths
Wednesday, Sept. 13, 1-2 p.m.
Register here.
My August column in Circuits Assembly focuses on getting to win-win in OEM-EMS negotiations.
One of the recurring themes I hear in electronics manufacturing services (EMS) is how challenging it is for many program managers and salespeople to negotiate with customers. I’m often told the industry has changed, but when I ask hard questions I tend to find that the biggest change is that the people doing the negotiation seem to know a lot a less about the business of building electronic products than their predecessors. And this isn’t just on the EMS side. Years ago, OEMs put highly technical senior people on the team that managed outsourcing efforts. While those people were tough negotiators, they negotiated based on strong knowledge of the processes and challenges inherent in electronics manufacturing. Similarly, EMS program managers (PMs) were often pulled from operations. If expenses were increasing, they had the knowledge to explain the reason a price increase was necessary. Read more here.
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