The Thomas Blog

Challenges And Opportunities In The Aerospace Industry

The aerospace and defense industry is a major source of innovation and technological advancements. It plays a critical role in national defense, enables safe and efficient air travel, increases communication and the dissemination of knowledge, and contributes to increased consumerism and the globalization of supply chains.

Since the Wright Brothers' first powered flight in 1903, the aerospace industry has had an enviable record of achievement. From transforming modern transportations to landing a man on the Moon — it's no surprise the American aerospace industry's positive track record and strength makes it one of the largest contributors of employment in manufacturing. So what are some of the challenges this group faces?

How To Improve Your Supplier-Distributor Relationship

A prospect that you’ve been chasing for months has been researching you as well, checking out your product catalog on a distributor’s website and downloading your CAD models. They’ve narrowed down their shortlist to you and a couple of your competitors, and now they’re visiting your website to gather additional details.

But when they arrive on your site, what they see doesn’t quite match what they saw on the distributor’s site. Part numbers are off, and specs aren’t aligning 100%. Plus, basic company information doesn’t match with what they read before and content looks outdated.

Reconciling the differences would take way too long, so instead they just cross you off their list. And you never even knew they were interested in the first place.

Unfortunately, this scenario plays out all too frequently and prevents the supplier and distributor from meeting their goals. In some cases, the scenario results in a dropped key customer and the existing customer base begins to diminish.

What To Do If You Lose A Key Customer

Customer retention can often mean the difference between your company thriving or dying. This makes the loss of major customers one of the greatest risk factors for manufacturing businesses. Your consistent goal should be to go to any lengths necessary to retain these keystone clients. However, over the course of even a vastly successful company’s lifespan, this kind of paradigm-shifting customer loss can — and will — occur. 

Green Manufacturing: The Business Benefits Of Sustainability

A few years ago, terms like “going green” and “eco-friendly” were all the rage for businesses. And while those words aren’t quite as buzzworthy today, they are still worth quite a lot to the people that really matter to manufacturers — B2B buyers.

More major players are driving toward a sustainability goal, like McDonald's who plans to use 100% recycled fiber-plastic packaging at every one of its locations worldwide by 2020. What this means for you is the increase of product options in demand and opportunities to tap into a new market and modernize your business.

Customer Delight: How To Ace The Last Phase Of Inbound Marketing

Buyers often encounter different challenges every day, and each phase of the buying process has opportunities (using inbound marketing!) for suppliers like you to position yourself as the best partner. 

Inbound marketing is defined as the data-driven approach to marketing that attracts people to your brand, engages them, and converts them to lasting customers. The approach is multi-channel and accounts for where people are, and how they want to interact with you using the main driver of quality content. It allows you to bring visitors into your site through various forms of channels like blogs, email marketing, and social media.

Unfortunately, a lot of marketers don’t even consider this last element of inbound marketing after the sale is made. That phase — customer delight — is perhaps one of the most important of all.

Opportunities For Business Growth During The Summer Slowdown

Every year, thousands of manufacturers around the country shut down their plants and facilities for a few weeks in the summer. They do so for a variety of reasons — to allow for vacation time, to take care of deferred maintenance, or to retool for the second half of the year.

While these activities are certainly important, too many manufacturing companies let the summer slowdown distract them from one of the most important activities of all — generating new business.

5 Risks Of Exporting Manufactured Goods — And How To Avoid Them

With tariffs and trade impacting the supply chain, a lot of the discussion has focused on the importing of goods and services. However, it has also sparked a renewed interest — and intensity — in exporting.

As standards of living continue to improve throughout the globe, foreign companies have more buying power than ever before. Couple that phenomena with the rise in global supply chains, and exporting represents one of the best opportunities for industrial companies to grow.

How To Make It On Your Industrial Buyer's Shortlist

As you know, industrial/B2B buyers looking to establish a long-term relationship with your business may vet you quite thoroughly. This could include visiting your facility, checking your finances, talking to customers and more.

However, before they get to that point, today’s buyers prefer to evaluate suppliers anonymously, then create a shortlist of potential partners before contacting them for further vetting.

Of course, evaluating you anonymously as they create their shortlists means learning as much as they can about you online. This blog post will help you make sure your online presence doesn’t have any holes that leave you short of making those shortlists.

Top 6 Benefits Of Local Sourcing

In today's increasingly global business landscape, it's no secret that many manufacturing and industrial businesses maintain supply chains that stretch all over the world.

However, what may be a secret is just how much procurement professionals would prefer to source locally instead.