其實我是當時是先寫英文再寫中文的.??有興趣的可以看看原文:
from time to time i hear people comments they would rather deal with smaller business than fortune 500.??before you could receive order and put their logo into your customer portfolio, the money and time you spend on dealing with those big player might far exceed your expectation – not even mention their (or i should say “our”) high expectation and hey process on qualification and development.??as a matter of fact, in one of real case of my previous experience, development cost of a mobile terminal for an european industrial giant could be few times higher than a local chinese company of its type.??question is, what makes such different?
truth is that you will he to entertain a big group of people before they even start to be serious.??in the follow text i would like to share my view and to answer the above question – why, who, when?
so now let’s see how many gate you need to pass before you get your first trial order.??to answer this question, first let’s see who is behind the screen:
-? ? ? ? people who start the idea to work with you or your competitors: normally high level management who care their p&l than the employment risk of themselves.
-? ? ? ? people who define the requirement of the product sourced from you:??product manager (business) or product engineer (technical) or r&d engineer
-? ? ? ? people who define the target supplier profile - price? technology? quality level? :??sourcing manager, but most of the time people from other function will involve.??(they all think sourcing is funny job..)
-? ? ? ? people who look for you from your b2b website and contact you:??the one you call them “customer”.??normally front line junior sourcing staffs who do the shortlisting work.??often it could be a staff from their china office.
-? ? ? ? people who come to visit, qualify you and confirm that you are a good factory:??auditor from quality department.??likely chinese.
-? ? ? ? and most important people who make the go/no go decision to work with you and place an order:??you never know…
complicated enough???not yet!??i hen’t yet mention the people involved after order placed.
these people can categorize into 4 groups:
sourcing:
your official counterpart.??even you he good relationship with key big guy from other department, don’t try to skip sourcing.??they he the right to rate your performance, grant you this and the next project, decide the price they want to pay for your product, and your annual cost reduction target.??all big customers should he a comprehensive, supposed-fair supplier evaluation system.??however i can tell you that no matter how systematic and well processed company, the decision factor at the end is very likely base on their own feeling on you.
a typical personality of sourcing person is curious, knowledgeable in commerce and maybe your industry.??you could be creative with them and feel free to propose your new cooperation concept.
quality:
process orientated people.??most of the time you will see them stick to the paper rule and not willing to be flexible.??they could ask question that you might not understand why they ask, and some question might be too obviously to answer but they’ll still ask like a child.??what you need to do is to respect this as their process and profession, and support.??besides, if you do not know enough the idea behind quality system and assurance, always let your quality people speak to them.
if you want to please a quality manager, the best thing you could do is to make their work easier.
marketing people:
if you are in touch with the people carrying title like product manager or regional sales manager, and they are talking to you on their project, pay attention.??they are likely the real customer.??when i say real customer, they are the “internal customer” of your customer, the sourcing[收起]
