Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Industrial Solutions - Winning New Business

Winning new business for the Industrial Solutions group requires much more than providing a quotation with a price and waiting to receive the purchase order. A typical new business award will be the opportunity to supply a quantity of parts at an agreed upon price for 3-4 years. The automotive sector represents the primary customer base for the wire harness team and each year the automotive industry works to reduce the supply base to those companies that can meet a more demanding set of criteria. Each year the challenge is to extend payment terms, provide price reductions, reduce lead-times, reduce Defective Parts Per Million (DPPM), and increase our engineering support. This seems exhausting just reading it!

Telamon continues to flourish in this industry by accepting these challenges and by working to improve our processes and increase our product knowledge. Our customers are acknowledging their appreciation of these efforts by awarding new business. We are also being exposed to new customers and new business opportunities based on this reputation. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to be introduced to new business. The same is true when a valuable contact at an existing customer moves to another company and introduces us to their new company.

While price is the perceived prime driver, we are surprised recently at the focus on quality, delivery, and customer support. Our customers must highlight our performance in these areas when promoting Telamon for new business because our customers will disqualify a supplier that does not meet the performance requirements in these areas even if their price is lower. The emphasis on quality and delivery means that everyone in our organization plays a role in winning new business! 


We use Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) tools to assure that we meet each of these expectations. Our customers use Contract Reviews, Team Feasibility Commitments, Supplier Quality Portals, and other documents to monitor our progress in developing the production processes. Additionally, our customers regularly audit our Fresnillo facility to assure we are producing their parts in compliance with the process documentation.    

It can be grueling at times, however we enjoy our automotive business and are always actively involved in winning new customers in other markets. We have a specific strategy to help us achieve this initiative, and we will discuss this strategy in our next blog!

- David Lillich
VP Sales
Industrial Solutions - Telamon Corporation

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Business Process Solutions - 2015 Projections for Outsourcing

The Accounts Payable Network, a network of more than 50,000 AP process owners in the U.S. and around the world, is the world's largest AP-focused organization. Since Telamon's Business Process Solutions group focuses primarily on finance and accounting, we follow the news associated with this network religiously. A recent article, "Outsourcing in 2015" by Wilma Miranda, highlights what outsourcing trends are expected in 2015.

With projected growth for business process outsourcing there has been a heavy focus on what companies can do to stay at pace with this growth. Miranda points out that many clients are leaning toward acquiring more specialized services rather than general, horizontal services. To appease to clients Miranda suggests concentrating on vertical segments and aim at providing to industries such as Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Retail. This means it will be imperative that companies have more explicit knowledge about different industries as well as the clients and their competition.


US cities have been targeted as potential prospects for growth in outsourcing which means that companies must start paying attention to these shifts toward specialized offerings now.

Telamon Business Process Solutions provides transaction processing for the Logistics, Transportation, Retail, Distribution, and Healthcare markets. We pride ourselves on understanding the characteristics and business needs of these markets and becoming the extended business office of choice.

To read more from "Outsourcing in 2015" and lean about the growth in outsourcing click here.

- John Owen
VP Sales
Business Process Solutions - Telamon Corporation