VISIONTALK
VSG Monthly Newsletter
Welcome to VisionTalk
Dear VSG Team,
It is our absolute pleasure to introduce you all to the first ever VSG monthly company newsletter - "VisionTalk". Each and every month we will share exciting stories and important industry, company, individual and other key information by utilizing the VSG Five Pillars of Success...as our base guideline.
It is extremely important to recognize those for their contributions to this newsletter and thank you to all that participated to kick-off the very first one. A very special thank you to Jess who has done an incredible job to provide valuable guidance and support.
The newsletter will evolve over time and if you ever have ideas or contributions please send them to Jess at jsudak@vsgus.com.
Please enjoy and to many more publications to follow. Happy selling!
Joe
Monthly Motivation
Five Pillars for Success
People
We will feature employees in each VisionTalk as a way to get to know each other as well as learn more about the work everyone is doing at VSG.
Meet Jess!
Jess is currently handling the High Low Report, Account Profiles, the VSG Monthly Newsletter and will be managing the VSG Website Re-design project.
Outside of the workplace, Jess enjoys spending time with her rescue dog, Zoey, hiking, Detroit sports, and traveling. She is currently a part of a remote work travel program and is working and traveling with a group of 20 other remote workers. She spent a month traveling in Spain and is now in Prague for the month of August (as well as traveling to Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen and Krakow) before she returns back to the States.
Relationships
A great example of VSG relationships is Scott Garrison and his connections in the gaming industry.
Scott Garrison & the Gaming Industry
Scott Garrison joins the team with extensive experience and relationships in gaming, lighting, hospitality and technology. Based out of Las Vegas, Scott has been intimately involved in the technology boom, helping companies develop and optimize the value of their technology platforms while building relationships across multiple verticals.
Scott has over 30 years of experience developing and implementing sales and business plans within a variety of industry sectors including Technology/Software, Hospitality, Casino, Gaming, Lighting, Software, Golf, Electrical and Audio/Video. He possesses extensive experience at the executive level in operations, business development, acquisitions, and sales and marketing.
Scott is working to drive the gaming vertical through his relationship with Mark Lipparelli. Mark is the founder of Gioco Ventures, LLC, a development stage technology/investment company and also serves as a strategic advisor to world wide clients in the gaming, entertainment, investment and sports industries.
Mr. Lipparelli served as a Senator in the Nevada State Senate during 2015 and 2016 representing District 6 located within Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2013 Mr. Lipparelli completed a four-year term on the Nevada State Gaming Control Board including his final two years as Chairman.
Prior to his years of public service, Mr. Lipparelli served in several senior level management positions over a span of fifteen years with the gaming industry’s leading technology companies including Bally Technologies, Shuffle Master, and Casino Data Systems. As a result of his leadership roles, Mr. Lipparelli was required to be licensed and found suitable by gaming regulators from around the globe.
We are excited to see the opportunities that Scott and Mark will bring to VSG. If you have any questions about the gaming vertical please feel free to contact Scott at sgarrison@vsgus.com.
Scott has been married 23 years to his wife, Jennifer. They have 2 children Tatum,18 and Briggs, 17. Scott loves spending time with the family and all the kid’s friends at the lake wakeboarding and surfing.
Innovative Global Supply Chain Solutions
Another Pillar for Success - Innovative Global Supply Chain Solutions - VSG achieves this by providing industry leading, attentive and expeditious service.
Get to Know Dustin Ford
Dustin brings a wealth of experience and skills to the VSG team. Dustin received his BBA from Texas A&M and went on to obtain MBA's from Northwestern University, Kellogg Business School and The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology.
After graduating from Texas A&M, Dustin went to work in the board-level electronics market. He currently has dual Citizenship, having lived in Hong Kong for 12 years, where he built a
strategic footprint the Asia region, producing billions of dollars by managing strategic supply lines for the factories of companies we use every day. To date, he has logged over 1200
meetings globally with technology firms, learning cutting edge models and programs across many sectors.
Personal highlights include his depositions in 2011, used during hearings on Capitol Hill to help amend The National Defense Authorization Act. The investigation by The Senate Armed Services
Committee under Carl Levin & John McCain, helped uncover and mitigate risks across the Government, Public and Private sectors to keep American’s safe, later signed by President Obama.
In the last 5 years, he has met with pioneers like Steve Wozniak (founder of Apple) and Bob O’Rear (Microsoft employee #7, wrote PC DOS). Dustin & his wife Ivy reside in Austin, Texas with their two sons, Carter, 10, and Aaron, 7. They like to invest in start-up companies and real-estate, and are active in supporting many charities.
State of the Union from Dustin
When we started this journey, the only way to succeed in the long run was to roll up our sleeves and work hard, smart, and drive opportunities to the table. The process contributed to some heartache, broken promises, excitement, and booked orders. Personally, it has been special, as I can see how far we’ve come and just where we are headed. Here is some detail of the path in Phase I and great things ahead to look forward to in Phase II for board level solutions.
The VSG Supply Chain consists of fully traceable, audited suppliers with many years of business built on trust and commitments. The market is very dynamic, and this is what it looks like for VSG:
Asia Sourcing Roadmap/Process:
There are many types of models and areas VSG can add value with our customers. After a few months, I’ve narrowed down most of the concentrated PAIN lies in these areas on the customer front:
Most of our Customers are: Low Volume/High Mix Applications
- Buy from Distribution = Poor Customer Service
- Stagnant Pricing
- Buying behavior is Reactive
- ‘Hand to Mouth’ fed production runs
- Low buffer inventory or stocking programs (lack volume)
- Drop-In orders
- Detached from Market Information
- Legacy Builds = End of Life problems
- Under resourced (don’t have teams of planners, buyers, commodity managers)
- By nature, risk averse
- Their current suppliers typically have fat margins in SOME areas, but not ALL areas
Positioning Pitch
Often, I get asked to describe VSG, or how we should pitch our offering to the market. Effectively, the best approach is to do the following:
- VSG has global factories and design centers creating solutions
- VSG want’s to partner up with similar MFGs with similar products, and share buffer and supply opportunities.
- VSG has open design platforms and current projects under management that very likely have unique pricing versus distribution.
- Many of VSG’s products designed & manufactured are for Fortune 500 companies wishing to outsource re-design R&D for their legacy products, at which VSG has unique windows into accessible supply and pricing for long periods.
- Often, VSG may have drop-in orders for our increased production, at which we would like to have you as a partner to share inventory.
- Dealing with legacy products, often we have access and exposure to EOL product, Last Time Buys, and selling off Excess & Obsolete inventories.
- Our closure rate has gone up, but still lags way behind for the amount of work put into quoting which has led to strains on critical supply relationships. It is imperative that if you give a target, and we dig out pricing and a schedule, we expect an order. We can no longer build it, and they will come.
Qualification:
- Vetting of the opportunities will greatly increase
- Pricing exercise lists will not be a priority
- Direct engagement with customers incl. meetings, bridge calls expected
Growth:
We are lean on local Franchise distributors globally, where pricing is unique and often available in our backyard. In order to keep farming lists, we must take advantage of our raw data and use it wisely, lining up BOMs and Applications to cross sell/utilize our resources efficiently. BOMs, yet alone how they are formatted, is extremely taxing time wasters without qualifying but do know we can use the information to our strategic advantage. We plan to beef up resources in Asia to help Sonia build out her team, breaking up key suppliers into groups so we can focus and build alliances. It is important that we go from reactive sourcing, to proactive sourcing where our suppliers are just like customers. We must get better at going a step further with vendors, following up and giving answers to their failed attempts to win our business while spreading out orders to workhorse suppliers that quote us regardless of our wins. Screen pricing or ‘no-bid’ vanilla quoting is for amateurs.
Market Update
The Electronic Components Supply Network (ECSN) has urged electronics buyers to review their outlook on lead times for components amid surging global demand and reports of allocation risks on certain products.
Global demand is also on the rise, with the Semiconductor Industry Association reporting that semiconductor sales across the world were up over 22% compared to the previous period – the biggest year-on-year growth since September 2010.
Components on Allocation
Numerous supply disruptions plus the growing demand is causing a build‑up of extended lead times, with a small number of products now understood to be subject to lead times of as much as a year – meaning they are effectively on allocation. I had a factory supplier in Asia mention this week that Texas Instruments was not accepting new orders or pull-ins for the remainder of 2017.
Memory chip prices have been on the rise since late last year as tight supply in DRAM and NAND flash memory have chip vendors scrambling to add capacity. Flash memory chips are also finding uses in more applications, such as consumer electronics and solid-state drives, leading to higher consumption.
DRAM average selling prices will rise another 5 percent in the third quarter, while the average selling price of NAND chips surged by 20 to 25 percent in the first quarter.
Engineering Focused
Another Pillar for Success - VSG is driven by technology - by making the right choices for overall design and quality improvements - especially on our customers bottom line.
ISO9001 is an example of our engineering focus and will improve our infrastructure to provide customers with quality confidence and integrity of our products.
The VSG Path to ISO9001 from Ron Burkey
Preface: As we continue to evolve as a world class supplier, we recognize that we need to elevate our infrastructure to be able to provide our customers the quality confidence and integrity of our product offerings. As such, we are committed to implementing controls to establish ourselves as a trusted supplier of our diverse product line. A few FAQ’s below:
What is it?: ISO 9001 (International Standardization Organization) is an industry quality standard that defines requirements for an internal Quality Management System (QMS).
What are the requirements?: ISO 9001:2015 QMS requirements for compliance are defined from the following high level principles:
- Context of Organization
- Leadership
- Planning
- Support
- Operation
- Performance Evaluation
- Improvement
How will this benefit VSG?: Implementing a quality management system will help us to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our customers through continuous improvement of our operational processes and internal management strategies. In addition, having ISO certification will strengthen our position in the marketplace for future opportunities.
What is the process for QMS implementation?: The foundation of a QMS is a high level documentation and resource set consisting of internal manuals, procedures, forms & working documents, work instructions/SOPs, and a documentation repository that enables versioning control.
How do we get there from here?: We have hired a professional consultant company (Accreditation Resource Management) and registered with Perry Johnson Registrars to provide the onsite infrastructure development support and the internal auditing for certification.
In summary: ISO9001:2015 is the current baseline for Quality Management System development, and ultimately, AS9100 Rev D infrastructure enabling even more potential market expansion that builds upon those foundation principles. Our objective is to be ISO9001:2015 certified by year end and AS9100 Rev D. certified by mid-year 2018.
This is a very exciting time for the maturation potential of our company and the growth opportunities ahead! We’ll be communicating developments as they evolve and as always, we appreciate your continued support!
Pillars for Success Put to Work
Dave's customer, Roqos, is a great example of VSG and all of our Pillars for Success!
Roqos
The customer loved what we accomplished and asked us to do look at doing a complete assembly. We priced it out and did first article approvals to win the program.
From there we designed in our own custom WiFi modules to make more profit and even designed the box that it ships in!
Now we are stocking the product and doing virtual shipping daily to the end consumers.