Part I of this blog post analyzed the white paper entitled “Manufacturing Outsourcing: Seven Common Pitfalls to Avoid” , authored by Symphony Consulting and Arena Solutions. It also established an intrinsic connection with product lifecycle management (PLM) software technology as a global sourcing collaboration enabler.

Indeed, several macroeconomic trends seem to be helping the PLM market, starting with the rampant offshoring of facilities and/or expansion of outsourcing and contract manufacturing overseas. There are also escalating mergers and acquisitions (M&As) within multiple business sectors and the inexorable spate of regulatory and compliance mandates within many industries and geographic regions.

This dovetails into the relentless pressure for companies to innovate and bring ever more functional (if not even “ever-cooler”) products, that have ever-shorter lifecycles, ever more quickly get to the market, and thus differentiate, especially in the electronics/high-tech and consumable packaged goods (CPG) sectors. Read the rest of this entry »

A number of TEC blog posts have discussed benefits but also the inevitable caveats of white papers (including all too common vendors’ self-serving marketing fluff and buzzword verbiage), and about their (un)intended audiences. These posts have even caused some heated debates with other blogging sites and experts on white papers, and I am going to stay away from all that here.

My intention here is rather to acknowledge that, as part of my daily routine of doing research on vendors and their strategies and offerings, I’ve read a ton of white papers in the last decade or so. And yes, these have ranged from vendors’ blatant bragging about their capabilities (a la the “Every man thinks his own geese swans” proverb) to some exceptional ones that were quite educational and established someone’s expertise in something.

One latter example would be the white paper entitled “Manufacturing Outsourcing: Seven Common Pitfalls to Avoid” and authored by Symphony Consulting and Arena Solutions. Why? Read the rest of this entry »