Now that manufacturing is two months into expansion, September 2009 ISM Report , our short list of long delayed purchases will once again be under serious consideration. Here are 6 reasons to throw out your old list and start a new one.
- It’s not the old economy. It’s no longer business as Mayberry RFD anymore.
This is your grandfather's economy.
What you were looking at before the recession was what you needed for a prerecession economy. That’s not today. - Your suppliers have been busy. Making improvements, reducing costs, increasing capabilities of their products. Machines, tools, and software especially. What may have been a “lock” 6 months ago may in fact be a dog compared to currently available offerings.
- Your customers have changed. Some have gone away, and some have lost your trust. Do you really want to buy something that is single purpose for an account that you can’t trust?
- Your market focus has changed. The lessons your team learned in this downturn are what your customers will continue to buy from you and what they didn’t (won’t). Maybe what you were planning on buying was to produce something for the stuff that hasn’t been selling these days…
- Your needs are really, really different today. When you first made that shopping list, your planning assumptions included readily available bank credit, solvent customers, 16 million plus auto sales in US and full employment in your shops. Today availability of credit is iffy, customers that remain are slow to pay, and auto sales are not likely to top 12 million. The headcount in your enterprise has been drastically reduced. What you wanted then is NOT necessarily what you need today.
- It won’t be appropriate in your new structure. How will what you wanted back in the good ol’ days be appropriate in your shop today with half your staff on layoff and the remaining staff working OT?
Is now the time to be faithful to a dusty old procurement plan based on a vanished Mayberry RFD economy?
We have just survived the Terminator economy. Tell me again why you want to buy Andy of Mayberry’s fishing pole?
Which items on your list remain viable, and what new ones will you be adding?
