In the age of Amazon, slow responses and outdated workflows are no longer acceptable.
Young people are primed to expect a different experience from manufacturers. This is the age of Amazon. Speed, accessibility, and simplicity are the new normal. This is obviously true for consumer products, but young people are bringing their expectations into businesses as well.
I say “young people,” but the truth is, most people have learned to expect speed and simplicity. I’m in my 40s and didn’t grow up with the internet, but I’m accustomed to the transparency and easy access offered by internet companies like Amazon.
The other day, I reached out to an industrial vendor to inquire about pricing and lead time. We are an established, mature company with good cash flow. We are ready to buy, cash in hand. We never received a response. Why is that? Another vendor of ours took a month just to give us a price and told us it would take two months for delivery. We placed an order and only then received word that it would be delayed yet another month. The glacial response baffles me, especially considering I can go online, buy a custom $1,000 widget, and have a more transparent, streamlined, better-curated experience. Many industrial companies still lumber along at a pace best matched to paper mail.
The difference does make sense, though. Online retailers leveraged tech to make buying dead simple and then used the ubiquity of the internet to aggregate massive volume. At scale, they had no choice but to streamline processes around buying, shipping, communication, and customer support. They couldn’t have functioned otherwise. Those in the industrial space haven’t faced the same kind of pressure—at least not yet.
The beauty of free markets is that when incumbents provide a bad experience, new companies can challenge them. If I could price and order products from vendors online with an accurate and reasonable lead time, I’d do that 100% of the time. Industrial markets are more specialized and more niche than online retail, but better experiences will still allow modern companies to aggregate volume, build scale, and outperform competitors. That doesn’t just improve existing markets. It creates new ones. Better accessibility means more people will buy. Tech can democratize access to industrial products and manufacturing services.
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Read the full article at The Fabricator
