Problem Of Best Supplier

When faced with a multitude of suppliers from the #1 source country for a given product or service, how do we winnow down to the best. Fastest way is to ask for references. Many will not reply, because they cannot since they are not really in business. Then check the references. Isn't it possible the process fails to get us the very best supplier... sure its possible... so maybe we only get someone in the top ten of the 200 best suppliers... but let's step back for a second...

We innovators bring new goods and services on the market.  Look at the first cell phones circa 1980...  look at Apple computers circa 1978.... yeecccch...

The items we introduce require a nonstandard process to produce. Possibly the gods and services require a nonstandard method to distribute. Given its tentative and exploratory nature, the process is relatively costly and cumbersome.  It is management intensive.  Innovative products are slow to market, relatively expensive, you have no options besides the innovative item,  and they are pretty junky all things considered. Certainly it seems so in retrospect.  Nonetheless, people desperately want the advantages of the first airplane, the first cell phone, the first fire insurance.


WE ever improve the item through market feedback...  at some magical point, well after we have made a lot of money and dumped the item for our own purposes, having gone on to other innovations suggested by our deeper knowledge of the market... at some magical point the conservators step in and invest in the massive cost of redesigning the item to get the cheapest combination of material and workmanship and still be "shoe", and then further lower the cost in finance and distribution to make the innovative item then available to everyone.  By "stealing" your idea the conservators make the item more better cheaper faster to everyone, a market that you could never reach anyway.  This is how the free market is second to none in making life's material benefits and services available to all. No other system can do it, let alone match it.  (It is why I am a free market anti-capitalist).

Of course, if you wish to ride your innovation down to the bottom of the market and gain compensation for your idea all of the way, you simply go the IPO route at the point your item is so popular a conservator would steal it.  By an IPO you aggregate enough capital to become a conservator and lower the cost and widen access to your item.

Faced with this problem of 200 OEMs, who, being competitive, may be very similar, pick one with good references from around the world.  Give them the job of samples...  get enough orders to cover the suppliers minimum, and then do the deal.  Based on feedback, you improve the product... at the same time you'll be learning more about suppliers.  At some time you and the very best will gravitate together, or the one you start with will improve based on innovating with you and become the new #1 if not already #1

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