Hope for the New Year
The fear of Chinese competition is highly overated. I will grant you that there is a tremendous influx of hardware / hardlines products coming into the U.S. from China. As I have written before, there is nothing new or different here than what happened to us in the 1970s with Japan.
It is especially encouraging to start the new year reflecting on the demise of Olympia hand tools in the U.S. market. Even with offices in the U.S. and a veteran U.S. hardware executive on the team, Olympia could not succeed in the U.S. market. Don't get me wrong, the importation of Chinese products is not going to fade into history. Rather, it is time to appreciate our competitive advantages. First, we have the advantage of proximity to the market. This means we have shorter supply lines and consequently we have an advantage time to market. It should also mean that we have a better understanding of our customers and are able to react much quicker to changes in the market.
Our secret competitive advantage however, is our freedom. Our freedom sets us apart from most of the rest of the world. Our freedom is our unique advantage that fosters creativity and in turn rewards that creativity fostering even greater creativity. Many foreign companies have set up U.S. manufacturing or assembly operations in an effort to shorten their supply lines. Some have even setup engineering operations to tap into our creativity while too many domestic manufacturers have become too far removed from the end user.
Survival and success will belong to those domestic organizations who understand the end user, the market and how to reward creativity. This is a combination that can't be duplicated off shore in countries that limit the freedom of individuals to flourish.
posted by Bob Cannon @ 8:41 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
America used to be free, but is quickly becoming a nanny state. Between do-gooder liberals on one side, and religious fundamentalists on the other, most of the nation is busy trying to legislate the behavior of everyone else. And this is negatively affecting the nation's creativity.
Do a search in the USPTO web site, and look who is registering most hardware patents these days.
I think that is the key... the closer one can be to the end user, the more likely it is one will get better market intelligence, and foster greater success.
I think the problem, at least from a US manufacturing standpoint is the huge disconnect we had in the past. Mfgr - sales rep - distributor - retailor- end user. When it came to asking questions, with all the people in the chain on the outside... it was amazing we ever had any successes. Then add in the internal issues keeping the sales reps data buried in layers of bureacracy and kept away from the design guys... it was a major vacuum. The same old process and management no longer can compete. Offshore manufacturers often times had less internal barriers in the 90's, and thus they could respond faster despite the larger external ones. For the few US manufacturers that survive, closeness to end users is going to make the difference imho.
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