White Paper: Succeeding in Today's Industrial Equipment Markets

Market changes occur quickly for industrial equipment manufacturers (IEMs), and only those organizations that have vision, strategy and flexible supply chains can adapt rapidly enough to capture market share in a timely manner. IEMs must learn to address the challenges they face with supply chain integration in order to meet customer demands more quickly and efficiently.

As IEMs struggle with today's recovering economy, many of their customers are returning to investment in equipment for the first time in many years. Now is the time to reevaluate manufacturing and supply chain processes and make sure customers’ needs are met and that everything is running smoothly. IEMs should evaluate:

• the changing IEM customer market and how it affects business practices
• the challenges facing IEMs, both large and small
• the skills needed to address those challenges and the changing industrial equipment markets

Rather than a completely separate and external component, supply-chain management and coordination should be an extension of the manufacturing process.

• 41% of IEMs state that their relationship with suppliers is only "buy and sell"
• Only 20% describe their relationships as "partnerships"

If that were not disturbing enough:

• 39% have only "buy and sell" relationships with customers
• Only 20% call it a partnership

Dealing with changes in manufacturing markets and keeping up with customer demands can quickly turn into an organizational nightmare. Having a good ERP system in place can go a long way in keeping it all organized and efficient. Ultimately, IEMs must find a way to offer increased value and integration to customers and move beyond the basic buy-sell relationships toward building partnerships.

To learn more download the white paper, "Succeeding in Today's Industrial Equipment Markets" at http://www.calszone.com/documents/mpi-industrial-equipment.pdf

By CAL Business Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner serving Manufacturing and Distribution, www.calszone.com/distribution