EMS Sales Teams: Digital Failures?

A comprehensive website is a salesperson’s best friend. So why don’t more EMS companies have one?

I read an article reposted on LinkedIn where a buy-side (pay-to-play) consulting group demeaned the EMS industry salesperson’s communication skills and blamed them for the dysfunctions within our industry. The premise was that, because Covid prohibited face-to-face engagements, the business development person’s lack of digital communications and their inability to redirect their sales efforts digitally were a root cause for woes in our industry today.

The EMS industry has been slow to embrace the digital world. But to assert that corporate digital dysfunction is an individual salesperson’s issue implies that one’s own accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook and X (Twitter) will drive enough deals to shore up a flat or declining EMS business. While I encourage my clients’ sales teams to utilize these platforms for various communications, gaining industry knowledge, networking and infrequent lead generation, they make up a tiny element of what an EMS company should undertake to optimize its digital sales opportunities and boost a sales process that even now has somewhat limited face-to-face engagements. Does your EMS company suffer from elements of this discussion? Let’s start a corrective action process.

First, consider your website. When was it last updated? I review many EMS websites, and when compared to their corporate company overviews, I often find conflicting or missing important elements on the sites. Your website should be your 24/7 salesperson. It doesn’t close deals; humans still do that. But many OEM outsourcing searches start with a “silent review” of an EMS website. Many times, the EMS is unaware of that OEM “hit” and no sales follow-up occurs. Do you have analytics connected to your site’s traffic and is there a process to follow up on relevant searches? Does your company optimize (SEO) the site so you show up early on a list of potential EMS companies from an OEM’s search?

I still encounter EMS companies whose sites consist of a single landing page. That so little attention and investment has been placed here amazes me. Everyone in the industry should be exposing relevant facts about capabilities, markets served, core values, quality certifications and other important details that trigger an OEM to spend more time with you or determine whether your company is a fit for its outsourcing needs. It is especially important, albeit difficult, to define what differentiates your company from others in the industry. In an old industry presentation I have given from time to time, the first slide is a view of the earth from space with the title: EMS – We All Look Alike from Space. How do we differentiate ourselves from the thousands of EMS companies across the globe? Content.

When I find an EMS website lacking good technical, business, social and internal company content, I know it stands a good chance of not getting a follow-up call from an OEM that viewed it early in a silent web search. Effective content is a mix of technical white papers, posts, opinions and videos espousing technical merits and competencies. Business issues affecting our industry are important to connect with, especially if you can tie that to a service offering that solves a specific business problem we all face, such as component availability or obsolescence. Are you helping your community with programs and volunteer activities? Are internal employees recognized for process improvements and promotions? A holistic approach for letting prospective OEM outsourcing teams know exactly what you are and what you are not should aid in proceeding past the silent search and moving to a more engaged mid-sales process.

How about virtual tours of your plant? Many OEMs have difficulty auditing an EMS plant in person. How do we support a formal virtual audit? This is not just a four-minute walkthrough of the factory, although that is an important video, too. You may want to consider where time has been spent in the past during face-to-face audits by world-class OEMs. Consider making detailed videos on each element of your business where time was invested in those in-person audits to be sure your processes are highlighted in great detail. I have spent a good portion of an in-person audit just on incoming raw material, verification/inspection, tracking, historical record-keeping for highly controlled industries, consigned versus purchased material, storage of like material so it is not mixed among clients, and kit dropping. How can a 30-second segment of a corporate-wide overview that brushes on raw material handling address an OEM’s concerns?

The markets you serve should not be intuitive based only on the quality certifications obtained. For example, AS9100 is a critical element to chase A&D business. But what else sets you apart as the least risky choice for OEMs in this market? How do you address material obsolescence and component counterfeiting? How do you qualify a high f manufacturing PCB source if the OEM left that BoM item as an open source? Are you an experienced test house? How well do you perform SMT changeover, since these runs tend to be shorter than, say, telecom or consumer-based business? While different markets have some similarities of needs, there are key differences between the various markets you may want to serve. I always encourage clients to expand on their experiences so a prospect can easily see where they excel.

While EMS sales teams became effective in Zoom and Microsoft Teams during the pandemic and can conduct virtual meetings with aplomb, many have been left to fight a sales battle with little ammunition in their sales tool kit.

Poorly constructed corporate overviews are common in our business. Many are too long, listing details not needed in a general overview. Some are too short, missing critical elements every EMS overview should include. Some I have reviewed don’t include the basic elements of their business that would trigger prospective OEMs to invest more time assessing them. A well-thought-out corporate overview, with massive backup slides of the numerous individual elements of the EMS company, is in order if you are supporting your sales team effectively.

If 50% to 75% of your monthly balance sheet costs are raw materials, why not have pages of slides detailing your robust materials organization processes, problem-solving methods and software tools? Isn’t that a logical big risk to a prospective OEM as it is a huge part of its spend with an EMS? Think about detailing your DFx and manufacturing engineering capabilities; PM team operations; specific technologies you are good at manufacturing/testing (i.e., RF, power, optical, fine-line, box builds); a review of primary differentiators to those you often compete against; examples of a BoM (DFSC) scrub, DfM, DfT and DfA; detail if you can really offer quickturn assembly, and different corporate overviews tailored to the specific industries you want to hunt and grow in. These are not expensive investments to make in support of your sales force. What about digitally supporting the HR department as it struggles to attract new and experienced talent? Why would an SMT engineer, or another in-demand position, want to work for you versus your competitors? You would not play a football game with nine players, so why not arm your sales force with a robust sales tool kit and give them all 11 players to compete with?

Then there’s the digital tools your materials team needs to embrace. The materials planning and communications between an EMS and its OEM counterparts is more demanding than ever. It isn’t just about the demand of some industries that pulls the global capacity of specific commodities and fluctuates lead times. Parts shortages and price fluctuations drive dysfunction, customer satisfaction and revenue capture much more than a salesperson with an inactive Twitter account.

A final critical element OEMs consider when all else seems equal in their final outsourcing decisions among EMS competitors is the NPI process. I am defining NPI as a validation build required to be given the green light to scale to production, or better stated, the first-article acceptance build. Many reading this may not feel their NPI process is robust, repeatable and well documented. Does every PM, at every site, for every new SKU being launched, go through identical NPI process steps with their materials, quality, manufacturing, test and planning organizations? I have seen hard-fought-for new clients lost at the NPI stage as the first-article builds were handled so poorly. I have seen OEMs never reach the scale of their intended outsourcing TAM with an EMS due to poor NPI execution. I have seen first articles pass and the EMS get bogged down on the first production run as problems surfaced that were not uncovered in the first-article build process. This topic deserves more time than given here, but ask yourself, is my NPI process a strength or weakness? If it is not a robust and repeatable process that every new SKU goes through, it may be time to rethink that process. Differentiate your company with a robust, repeatable and well-documented NPI process, and advertise it to as many prospective OEM clients as possible.

It’s a given that EMS salespeople must interact on their individual social media platforms. But it is fly poop on dust when compared to the EMS company’s obligations to invest in an overall digital strategy and the digital process and tools to support its sales team’s communication and sales efforts. Let’s put the focus of any dysfunction in the EMS company’s marketing outreach where it belongs, because if we blame a salesperson’s digital communications skills, the problem will never be resolved.

I have read that industry experts are prognosticating that a high percentage of all sales activity will continue to be digital even with the pandemic behind us, so this is a long-term benefit for those who invest properly.

Jake Kulp is founder of JHK Technical Solutions, where he assists OEMs and EMS companies with optimizing demand creation offerings and deciding when and where to outsource manufacturing. He previously spent nearly 40 years in executive roles in sales and business development at MC Assembly, Suntron, FlexTek, EMS, and AMP Inc. He can be reached at jkulp@cox.net.