|
October 1, 2006
BEGANTO SURVEY DETAILS SEARCH AND SAMPLING HABITS OF ENGINEERS:
HOW OFTEN, HOW MANY, AND HOW
How many projects does the typical engineer start in the course of a year, and how does the number of projects correlate with the number of samples needed to develop a design? Those were among the questions asked in a recent survey among members of the Beganto Open Network who have used its Need-A-Sample® application within the past six months. One-third of the respondents inaugurate one or two projects a year, and just under half inaugurate between three and five – but 45% ask for samples once or twice a month.
The sampling process is reasonably selective, the survey results indicate, with three-quarters of the respondents limiting their requests to five suppliers or fewer. Most – 53% -- request samples for five components or fewer, and 44% to anywhere from six to twenty-five.
Consistent with a prior Beganto survey conducted 18 months ago, 78% go to manufacturers’ web sites to order their samples, but using www.needasample.com ranked second at 61%, followed by the local rep (38%), DigiKey (35%), Mouser (19%) and NewarkinOne (15%). Manufacturer web sites are also the first port of call for reference data, used by 86% of the respondents, but second most popular starting point is Google (70%), followed by catalog distributor sites (61%).
Being asked to pay for samples will cause 29% of the respondents to take their request elsewhere, 51% said they don’t like paying but they’ll do so if necessary, and only 14% said they have no problem in paying. The same percentage --51% -- expects samples to be delivered within a week, and 17% expect samples within a couple of days. Several write-ins expressed annoyance at having manufacturers decline sample requests without notification.
Speed sells, the survey demonstrates. Half the respondents concede that the first sample to arrive has the best shot at being designed in, and 42% augment that attitude by agreeing that a sample that’s hand-carried in gets extra attention, because the engineer appreciates the extra attention from the rep; but several write-in comments suggest that engineers are impatient with delays in receiving a sample because the salesperson wanted to hand-carry it in.
Many of the other questions on the survey were Need-A-Sample-specific rather than dealing with the broad issues of the sampling process; and clearly the feature that engineers like best about using www.needasample.com is the ability to group requests and not have to repetitively enter the same information. Sunil Grover, Beganto’s CEO, says the company uses on-line surveys to develop metrics relating to the search and sample process, to measure user satisfaction with its programs, and to identify problem areas not only in its own processes, but also in those of its component supplier clients.
Using www.needasample.com is free to engineers and buyers who register as members of the BeON™ program (Beganto Open Network), and agree to report project progress. The program is funded by its sponsoring suppliers. The buy side program is supplemented by Beganto’s Open Search Engine (http://ose.beganto.com) and by NeedInfo™ and NeedaQuote™. Sell side modules in the Beganto product suite include Design Winner™ and Global Tracker™. Over 5000 sell side users at component suppliers and their reps and distributors use it to track new business opportunities, design wins, and manufacturing destinations for production orders, the better to compensate the sales personnel for their contribution to the order.
Over 41,000 people have used the program, and Beganto has processed over 60,000 sample requests, which are estimated to have resulted in 6000 design wins and 600 volume production orders.
Complete information about the Open Search Engine, Need-A-Sample® , BeON™ , Design Winner Premier™ , and Beganto are available at www.beganto.com . Printed literature is available from Beganto, Inc., 4800 Patrick Henry Drive,Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA,Phone: 1-510-722-6000, Fax: 408-492-1772, email sales(at) beganto.com
About Beganto:
Beganto, Inc. (www.beganto.com) provides the electronics industry a sophisticated web-based system that gets industry participants needed information for selecting, sampling, sourcing, and tracking products through the supply chain. BeON™, the Beganto Open Network, welcomes engineers, buyers, distributors, and manufacturers’ representatives as members at no charge, and lets them enjoy the full features of the system. Component manufacturers become members of BeON™ through paid use of Design Winner™, which facilitates tracking component opportunities from sampling to the point of design win. The privately held company has its headquarters in Fremont, California, and offices in Seattle, India and Japan.
BEG6017, NR, September 2006 Survey
October 1, 2006
|
