Editor’s comment for January 2020

Every day we’re bombarded by people wanting to sell us stuff and in turn, for those of us in business, we spend most of our lives trying to convince our customers why they should buy from us rather than the competition. It’s a relentless cycle that drives the commercial world.

In this day and age of unprecedented technological advancement, consumers really are spoilt for choice. In the machine tool world for example, it’s really very difficult to find bad products. Granted the old adage of you get what you pay for still applies, but generally at every price point you can pick up a reliable, accurate machine that will serve you well for years.

So if all products are pretty much the same in terms of price/performance, what makes us choose one supplier over another? Well it’s quite hard to define actually. Most companies in the manufacturing space purport to offer excellent service – and in my experience the vast majority do.

No it’s a bit more fundamental than that. I make no apologies for using a phrase that has become something of a cliché these days but it’s absolutely true – people buy from people.

Whether it’s a plumber at home, a financial advisor, a dentist or a CAD/CAM software developer, for the buyer/seller partnership to really work, a combination of things need to be in place.

Firstly - a bit of a no-brainer really – the products or services need to be high quality, reliable and fit for purpose. They have to do or exceed what they say on the tin. Then the price needs to be right. Everything else goes out the window if the customer feels he or she isn’t getting value for money.

The third thing is service. How well does your supplier look after you and make you feel valued? Will they take phone calls at 10pm? Will they send a service engineer within 24 hours? Will they help you get the best out of the product they’ve sold you? Have they trained you to use the equipment properly?

But the one thing underpinning all successful business relationships is the most important word of all – trust. If you don’t trust the person you’re doing business with, it’s a total non-starter. And trust is derived from another basic human trait – you have to like the person you’re dealing with and never take them for granted.

The rules we apply to our private lives are just as important in business. Like I said, people deal with people.

Our cover story this month is about this very subject – partnerships based on trust and integrity. Machine tool specialist Ward Hi-Tech and precision manufacturer BCW Manufacturing Group have a business relationship that spans 16 years. 52 machine tools later it’s as strong as ever.