This article originally posted on the Department of Commerce Blog on June 15, 2012. Guest blog post by Patrick Gallagher, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology
We’ve been hearing a lot about manufacturing, especially advanced manufacturing, these days. Things like U.S. manufacturing :
- Is critical to innovation since it’s responsible for most of our private sector research and development;
- Is increasingly about sophisticated computer-driven, highly productive worksites requiring skilled workers; and
- Is a growing source of good jobs.
What we don’t hear about as often are specific cases where U.S. manufacturers are using new technologies to diversify their markets, improve their products, and create or retain jobs. I was fortunate today to visit one such company, Omega Plastics Inc., located in Clinton Township, MI, about an hour outside Detroit.
The event was part of a “Best Practice Tour” sponsored by the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC), an affiliate of NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).
Omega Plastics employs about 45 people and makes injection-molded plastic products to order. For many years, they served one business sector, the auto industry. They decided that the best way to grow their business was to diversify. With help from MMTC, they did some strategic planning, lots of research, and committed the resources to transform their production facility.
Today 65 percent of the company’s product portfolio is in medical devices and consumer goods, 10-15 percent is in consumer packaging, 8 percent in security and safety products with about 12-15 percent remaining in the automotive sector. And they are selling these products globally.
In an Internet-enabled, innovation-driven economy, any company anywhere can find global markets with the right products. The key is embracing innovation and the change that comes with it.
Innovation guru and author Rowan Gibson travels the world telling businesses what he’s learned from studying companies like Omega Plastics. He says that the most successful companies innovate and create new successful businesses or products by viewing their world through one or more of the following “lenses:”
- Challenging orthodoxies (challenging conventional wisdom);
- Harnessing trends (understanding the change happening around you to create value);
- Leveraging resources (stretching core competencies and assets into new opportunities);
- Understanding unvoiced, unmet customer needs (the innovation holy grail, discovering needs that even the customer is not yet aware of).
The take-away message for manufacturers, and any organization looking to survive and compete, is that innovation doesn’t just happen. You have to look for it.
Hi Patrick – Great, and inspiring story, about a US manufacturer making it work. I work for a custom spring manufacturer here in Houston, TX and we’re always trying to find ways to diversify our company/product in order to grow our business and the economy.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing! – Aly
Patrick, I really enjoyed this article. My company, Marketects, provides marketing services for industrial (manufacturing and industrial service providers) companies and we’re also in the Houston area, Aly!
I smiled when I read the list of the four “lenses” companies needed to view their world through in order to be successful. The reason I smiled is that I can honestly say I have been doing all four for the past 3-4 years.
I came from a traditional marketing background, first working for manufacturing companies and then starting my own business about 14 years ago.
At a time when industrial companies were extremely skeptical about digital marketing strategies in general, I learned everything I could about Internet marketing and began beating the drum for inbound marketing tactics anyway. (1 – Challenging Orthodoxies)
I truly believed that traditional marketing would eventually fade away as even the most conservative companies realized that if they wanted to be FOUND they would have to do their marketing on the Internet. I was also sure that if I could ever get my industrial customers to make the transition from more traditional marketing methods (advertising, P/R, trade shows, direct mail, etc.) they would see much more impressive results from their marketing spend. (2 – Harnessing Trends)
I blogged; I tweeted; I started LinkedIn groups and drove discussions about industrial social media marketing; I wrote guest blog posts about industrial inbound marketing on manufacturing related websites; any time I met with a client or prospective client I brought up the topic of digital marketing; I formed alliances with digital specialists who also had manufacturing/industrial backgrounds; I basically took every opportunity I had to promote digital marketing to industrial companies. (3 – Leveraging Resources)
It has taken nearly three years, but because I have made myself known as an evangelist for industrial social media marketing and all things digital, industrial companies who are now starting to realize that this whole digital thing is more than just a passing fad are calling. They want to know how a digital marketing strategy would translate to their manufacturing or industrial service business. Even if they’re still not sure, what they are sure of is that the old, traditional marketing methods simply aren’t producing new business, any more. (4 – Understanding Unvoiced or Unmet Customer Needs)
We have started working with two customers on a fully integrated digital marketing strategy and it’s amazing what has happened in less than six weeks’ time. We have proposals out and many other opportunities in the works.
This is significant because I also went from a traditional, brick and mortar business with employees about 4 years ago to a virtual business model. I manage my operations from a home office, but have a team of open source partners who provide all the specialized services my customers need. When my target audience (manufacturers) started trending toward the lean business model, I likewise went lean. So the upturn in my business is happening at a time when I have only one full time employee: me.
Marketects’ future looks bright, but it is because as you said: “… innovation doesn’t just happen. You have to look for it.” I would go one step further and say, “you have to look for it, believe in it, and then make it happen.”
Thanks again for a great article that has applications for any type of business that wants to succeed today!