Successful EMS companies understand their strengths, acknowledge their limitations and avoid making promises their operations cannot support.

In the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) world, it is critical for companies to understand who they are and what they stand for, rather than adopting aspirational marketing taglines that make them appear indistinguishable from everyone else in the industry. Without that level of self-awareness, mistakes can occur when pursuing new business or serving existing customers.

Strategic account planning can help EMS program managers align customer relationships with long-term growth, profitability and operational goals.

For many electronics manufacturing services (EMS) program managers, just managing tactical account issues is more than a 40-hour-a-week job. Thinking about strategy can be difficult when an inbox is full of urgent emails and the phone is ringing with additional problems to solve several times a day. While blocking out time to develop a broader-picture account strategy doesn’t necessarily eliminate that workload, it does create a foundation for determining whether adequate resources are devoted to that account and whether the account is a really good fit for the EMS provider’s business model.