Dear Reader:
I don’t know about your world, but in my sandbox it seems that every day is either a Monday or Friday. There aren’t enough days in the week...or in the weekend either.
Is it the springtime weather? The economy? Or some other disruption in Einstein’s space-time continuum that’s causing this acceleration through time?
Regardless, there’s no escaping the reality that business is tough these days. Tougher than you or I have experienced before.
That can be distracting. If you’re not careful it will take you off your “A” game. It’s enough to give even the most stalwart engineer a rampant case of ADD.
But - ever the optimist - it can lead to good things as well.
You’re managing costs better than ever. Working closer with your suppliers, not just squeezing for price, but understanding each other’s operations to be sure you’re working together in a way that capitalises on every facet of opportunity for both of you. You’re closing efficiency-killing gaps in process. And most importantly you’re working tighter than ever with customers to be sure you deliver exactly what they need. Which, when you do it right, is often a far better solution than what they first asked for.
All good stuff. It’s going on right here at B&B in spades, and hopefully in your business as well.
- I’ve visited more customers in the last two weeks than I have in the last four months.
- I’m involved with no less than 14 supply chain projects, each of which were things we’ve talked about before but never quite been able to pull the trigger on – and at least 10 of the 14 will make us better. The remaining four will make us smarter (I do wish I could predict which four those will be).
- New product development intensity is at an all time high.
- I’m looking at trends and details of product lines that I haven’t looked at in a long time. And guess what? There are some superstars in the bunch. Product lines growing at impressive rates with no apparent regard for economic headlines.
The Ilinx serial converters are triple isolated, ultra rugged solutions for conversion and isolation between any combination of 232, 485 and fiber optics. These things are through the roof. Through the magic of databases, with a double-click I can see the entire customer list. It’s a who’s who of electrical utilities and heavy industrial manufacturers. These converters were bred for the meanest, nastiest environments that require rock solid reliable communications.
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_multi_family.asp?MultiFamilyId=59
And building a big head of steam is the Zlinx Wireless I/O line. Giving you the ability to read and control any remote input or output without having to run a wire. Magic. Icing on the cake is that just this week there was a major software upgrade released that cranked up the performance, giving the ability to update an analog Modbus input as fast as 15ms, and down to 8ms for a digital input. Not bad, incredible even!
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_multi_family.asp?MultiFamilyId=93
And once I started looking for positives, more kept popping. Remember last summer when I told you about our Elinx rugged Ethernet switch line that let you specify exactly what kind of fiber connections you need, virtually eliminating the need to media converters and “two box” solutions? Well that’s doing well too. And, go figure, the Elinx media converters are doing even better yet.
http://www.bb-europe.com/flexport3.asp
There you have it, good things are happening. Makes me feel better just writing them down. And, I even stopped long enough to realize that it’s Wednesday...I haven’t noticed a Wednesday in a long time.
What’s going well in your business? Put on your rose colored glasses and email me. I’d love to hear about it, and it will make you feel better too.
Happy Connections,
Mike Fahrion
e-support@bb-europe.com
+353.91.792444
