Self-confidence comes from meeting new challenges.

I shake my head when I see the large amount of self-idolizing today on LinkedIn. Who describes themselves as visionary, disruptive, a rainmaker, the prophet, the catalyst, the wizard, a guru, a Jedi master, or a creative genius?

Do you feel that this hubris is believable to peers? When did our egos start to dilute the need for getting up every day, working hard, looking at problems from multiple angles, being bold to take mindful chances, understanding we make our own luck and being thankful for small victories when running a business? Your title is stated on your business card; use it.

Disruptive people, technologies or real advancements in our society are so few, it seems we now must minimize these people or events when they actually occur due to the overuse of this term. For most of us, success is a byproduct of very hard work, learning from failures, collaboration with the people we are surrounded by, an ability to see the real issues affecting our businesses with a focus on solving the critical few, a strong competitive drive for “winning,” and yes, a little good luck.

Employee recruitment and retention require an active company effort.

It’s no secret that a tight labor market is an issue in all segments of the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. A large part of this is the result of manufacturing offshoring trends. When I entered the workforce, I had friends and relatives who worked or had worked in manufacturing-related careers, influencing my choice to work for an EMS company. That isn’t the case today.

A few years ago, I participated in a local manufacturing awareness day targeted at high school students participating in their schools’ robotics programs. I put together a short video that illustrated manufacturing processes and careers in the EMS industry. Even students interested in engineering careers weren’t thinking about manufacturing engineering or hardware engineering. Most were focused on software engineering with an eye on getting jobs at Google or some other highly visible tech employer.

Getting a grip on the many moving parts.

Much of my time this decade has been spent supporting private equity (PE) firms considering an investment in the EMS space, with no prior EMS experience on their staff. Those of us who have spent years in this space know there are vast amounts of "moving parts" involved with running a solid EMS business.

I've been told that my audits and SWOT writeups proved to be very valuable, provided accurate insight into a business the potential investors knew very little about and reduced previously unknown risks that would have crept into the deals.

Many similarities exist among the audits I've conducted over the past few years. Many of these findings would not surprise EMS industry veterans. But these situations may not be self-evident to an investor who hasn't previously worked in this complex service industry. I have also seen many of these elements of risk at my direct EMS clients managed to different degrees of efficiency.

Some questions/topics to consider before making any investment decision include:

Know the “whys” behind each clause in the manufacturing agreement.

Partnership is one of the most hackneyed terms in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. It often gets used to describe business relationships that are anything but partnerships. At the same time, the best EMS relationships actually are partnerships where parties have a symbiotic relationship beneficial for both companies. What drives these different relationships in the same business model? Often the answer is the program manager.

Back when outsourcing was a new concept, the most experienced employees at an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) were assigned the responsibility for the relationship. In many cases, those executives had manufacturing as well as purchasing experience. When demand or allocation surprises occurred, these experienced teams worked together for a good resolution in most cases. Today, contract manufacturing is just one more thing that most OEM purchasing departments source and manage. Buyers may or may not have ample experience managing EMS suppliers, particularly given the volume of turnover in these roles. Less experience translates to a focus on unit price, less ability to understand the impact of errors in forecasting, and difficulty in understanding issues that excess material creates.