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Most manufacturers now outsource production of their product's assemblies and cost sensitive components with offshore companies in order to remain competitive in our global marketplace. This new reality means much of what gets purchased is commodity oriented. It also means that Manufacturers are able to focus their North American efforts on product design, final assembly, integration and test and sales and marketing initiatives. Manufacturer Representative organizations supporting North American clients have been forced to re-engineer their organizations in order to serve and support this down-sized market. The successful rep organization must provide a consultative approach and offer products focused on providing high value, high impact solutions to meet their client's needs. The cost reduction evolution of our market and the new virtual company model enables clients to concentrate on design and procurement decisions in North America on high value, IP oriented products, i.e. integrated displays, switch and touch input devices and control electronics. These products are typically purchased in smaller volumes and represent a signficant portion of the end cost of a client's product. In many cases our customers want to maintain control of both the design and procurement decisions for these products because of their importance. |