While there can be pockets of higher margin business, the electronics manufacturing services industry is for the most part a fairly low margin industry. Those margins get worse with a weak sales process. Simply put, if all contractors look equal, the decision will be made on lowest unit price most of the time. Picking the low bidder is always a safe and defensible choice. If one contractor appears to provide a better solution than the rest, slightly higher pricing is permitted. While some salespeople are better than others at achieving higher pricing, the reality is that consistently winning projects without being the lowest bidder is a team effort and a multi-stage process. This month's column looks at how that workload should be divided between sales and the operations team. Many companies take a hunter approach to sales, expecting the salesperson or rep to only identify opportunities. The reality is that the salesperson really should be doing much more, since often they have the strongest relationship with at least one of the members of the prospect's sourcing team.
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