The Thomas Blog

The 3 Facts You Need To Know About the Export-Import Bank and U.S. Manufacturing

The Export-Import Bank is up for reauthorization this month, and it may be in as much trouble as it’s ever been.

Not familiar with it? The ExIm, as it’s known, supports U.S. exports by providing credit, loans, guarantees, and/or financing to suppliers that wouldn’t be able to get it otherwise. It frequently acts as a lender or insurer to companies with a lot of foreign customers who may not have the on-hand capital to fulfill orders, or who can’t get financing from private lenders. Credit from the ExIm also lets suppliers sell to foreign buyers on favorable terms rather than requiring upfront payment.

How to Avoid “Missed Connections” in the Buying Cycle

Most people know about Craigslist “Missed Connections:” you’ve met someone interesting but didn’t follow up or exchange contact information, so you cast a line into the World Wide Web in the hopes of getting a second chance with that special someone.

The problem? The odds are largely against you, since it all depends on that other person actually finding your ad.

5 Reasons Industrial Buyers Search for “Made in the USA” Suppliers

Through thick and thin, from U.S. manufacturing’s heyday, past tough times, and into the present resurgence, the “Made in the USA” label has always held a distinctive connotation: strength, quality, pride, and a sense of resilience. It’s no secret, though, that up until recent times, it was something that OEMs and industrial buyers would say they wanted to pursue, but it simply wasn’t feasible. The domestic manufacturing landscape got so bad that the U.S. government even considered fudging the numbers to make manufacturing numbers look better . . . by classifying fast food as a manufacturing industry. Those cheeseburgers can make you think funny things.

What Procurement Managers Must Understand About Industrial Suppliers

Industrial suppliers are not mind readers. Shocking, I know!

Yet each day they are pressed into service to determine exactly what a buyer needs with sparingly little information. They do their best to provide specs of their parts, CAD files, dimensional data, performance curves, videos, comparison tables, machine lists, and capability descriptions but the procurement teams always have unanswered questions.

As an industrial buyer, it is your job to bring the clearest questions possible. Here are a few facts to have on hand before contacting a supplier:

Partners vs. Suppliers – Which One Are Buyers Looking For?

Buyers don’t look for new suppliers every day — it’s rare, time consuming, difficult, and even a bit risky to change suppliers.

So when they do look, they’re not seeking out a one-shot, “easiest” supplier — they’re looking for a new long-term partner so that they won’t have to go through the process again anytime soon. No matter what area of the sales cycle you’re targeting, here’s what you can do to position yourself as a true partner.

Four Good Reasons To Reshore Your Supply Chain

Reshoring your supply chain means you decrease your dependence on countries in other parts of the world. For example, if you’re building an automobile, you might assemble it in America, but if the bolts for the engine come from China, you’ll have to wait for them to ship across the Pacific Ocean. This could result in disruptions to your production schedule.

And, with production so far away, how could you ensure that the quality is up to par? If this isn’t enough reason to reshore your supply chain, here are four more:

How to Help Industrial Buyers and Win More Business

Industrial buyers want your help in making their job easier. It’s as simple as that. Don’t over think it.

How can you help them? Let’s take a look at the typical day of an industrial buyer to help identify areas where you can offer more support:

How Procurement Managers Can Break Out of the “No Quote” Blues

“Not for us.” “Volume is too low.” “We can’t do that size.”

You’ve heard every excuse possible. No matter how hard you try, sometimes it feels like you will never find a custom manufacturing supplier that will even give you a quote, never mind actually produce the parts you need. In an economy that has folks pushing to maximize every opportunity, it seems very counter intuitive that we would see this many possible jobs get turned down, doesn’t it?

11 Tips to Help Identify a Reliable Supplier

When starting your research to identify a new supplier, the knee jerk reaction is to look for the best price to lower cost. However, it is more important to look for the long term value of your partnership with this supplier.