The Business We've Chosen

They were our largest customer. A global brand who selected our local facility over distant companies to have their medical devices built. What started out as a small repair order quickly became steady production of new products amounting to a third of our sales. A big customer who took up a great deal of space on our production floor and our income statement.

Every year this customer would pay us a visit with their annual Vendor Performance Review. They would come prepared with a lengthy PowerPoint presentation providing in great detail how we performed during the past year in all areas. Statistics, graphs, pie and bar charts analyzing every angle. A dizzying array of Key Performance Indicators, Incident Reports, Vendor Responsiveness, Quality, On Time Delivery, Field Reliability, First Pass Yields, RMA Turnaround, Throughput, Output, Incoming Quality, Reject Rates and overall Customer Satisfaction.

We consistently met or exceeded expectations. In all areas.

Year after year, they told us how valued we were as a supplier. How our performance set the standard within their supply chain and acknowledgement of our top supplier status. A firm pat on the back for a job well done. Then they would turn off the conference room projector and say, "Great job. Now let's talk price reduction."

This was the business we chose. We knew being a global supplier meant we had to excel in areas of both performance and price. We could complain about fairness. That they were bullying us. How it was a David and Goliath situation. That they should be willing to pay more given our high quality, etc, etc, etc. But from the moment we accepted the first purchase order, we knew delivering an exceptional product was simply expected. Medical patients aren't too forgiving when devices fail. But that didn't mean we had a licence to bill.

Our customers expected the price to go down every year. And we didn't disappoint. It wasn't enough that we built a great product. The search for efficiencies and innovation was never ending. That was the business we were in. We shipped medical devices. But we sold value.

Canada effectively just went through its own vendor performance review. Our biggest customer asked us for a new deal and the resulting USMCA negotiations were tough. I had déjà vu when I heard talk about how unfair this is, that we already have a deal, why mess with what's working, accusations of being bullied, etc, etc, etc. This is the business we've chosen and we're free to look for new customers. But our trading activity within North America remains strong because we excel in all areas. And we don't disappoint.