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Winning the customer is only the beginning.
Getting the chance to quote for a major electronics company is an achievement in itself. Before you can compete for a project, you often need to overcome strict purchasing rules, established supplier strategies and year…
Winning the customer is only the beginning.
Getting the chance to quote for a major electronics company is an achievement in itself.
Before you can compete for a project, you often need to overcome strict purchasing rules, established supplier strategies and years of trust between the customer and their existing partners.
In my experience, becoming an approved design or hardware supplier can take years. You need proven performance, strong relationships or a technology that gives the customer a good reason to consider someone new.
We managed to do this with several large companies.
It took a combination of technology, price, relationships, performance, persistence—and a little luck. We tried different approaches over time until an opportunity opened.
But getting that opportunity and building a lasting business are two different challenges.
The first project is where you must prove that your promises hold up. Your technology needs to work. Quality must be consistent. Prices must be competitive. Deliveries must arrive when agreed. The customer needs confidence that your team can handle the pressure when something does not go to plan.
Communication is a large part of that confidence. If a problem appears, raise it early, explain the impact and bring a plan to solve it. A customer may accept a technical challenge. Losing time because nobody told them about it is much harder to accept.
Over time, our team worked on many hardware designs for customers including Apple, Samsung and Microsoft, across watches, phones, computers and tablets. Becoming an approved supplier opened doors to more projects. Every delivery helped determine whether those doors stayed open.
That required commitment across the whole business. Engineering, manufacturing, quality, sales and customer service all had to meet expectations. A strong design could not make up for unreliable delivery, and a competitive price could not make up for poor quality.
There was also constant commercial pressure. As volumes increased, expectations for price reductions followed quickly. We had to keep improving our processes and costs while maintaining performance.
In my experience, major customers often work with a small group of suppliers, sometimes with different roles: a technology leader, a supplier capable of delivering large volumes and a challenger pushing the others to improve. Getting into that group is difficult. Losing your place can make returning even harder.
That is why winning a project should never make you comfortable. It gives you the chance to build trust—and the responsibility to keep earning it.
You are only as good as your last project.
Keep your promises, communicate clearly and deliver consistently. In the end, the customer pays your bills, and their confidence in your next delivery is what keeps the relationship moving forward
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