Henrik Pontoppidan, Director of S2U Design, explains how the wrong question is a symptom.
Questions I hear surprisingly often from companies importing from Vietnam are questions like:
“Will the factory include assembly instructions?”
“Do they take pictures of the loaded container?”
“Will they add corner protection to the cartons?”
“Do they still use styrofoam?”
At first glance, these seem like perfectly sensible questions. But every time I hear them, I wonder if the importer asking such questions has actually realised the immense potential of buying from this wonderful country’s vast array of manufacturing opportunities. And how to harness this potential.
But then I reflect on my 15 years of importing and retailing furniture before moving out here, and my mindset during those years. Someone, be it a sourcing company, a friend or my own staff, introduced a factory – and then, without me being embedded in Vietnam – if that factory could possibly make what I wanted to buy, it became pretty locked in. I was on the back foot.
Let’s take the assembly instructions example.
If you are asking about assembly instructions, you already know the answer, which is: the factory making my furniture will put assembly instructions in if they are told to. And they won’t if they are not.
So, why ask me if the factory I work with on your project includes them?
Shopping Versus Manufacturing
Shopping for furniture manufacturing in Vietnam is not the same as buying a car in a showroom and asking if it comes with leather seats.
The car manufacturer has already made that decision: yes or no.
Shopping for furniture manufacturing in Vietnam is the opposite. You are in the driver’s seat. Passing the decision-making onto a factory – as implied by the question – is not conducive to achieving the best results.
Vietnam’s strength is OEM manufacturing. A factory doesn’t tell you what your product is. You tell them.
That is a very different conversation. And this is where the wrong sourcing model begins.
The question “will the factory…” sounds innocent, but it tells me the process has tilted the wrong way. The factory has become the starting point. The product is being discussed through the lens of what this factory does, what this factory prefers, what this factory uses as standard, and what this factory is prepared to change.
That is the red triangle. Factory first. Product second. Customer last.
I know this model because I lived inside it for years as an importer. A factory was introduced. I was busy. I needed to move forward. The factory looked capable. So, naturally, the discussion became about that factory. What can they do? What do they use? What is their standard packaging? Do they include instructions? Can they take photos? Do they know this type of product?
Before long, the buyer is adjusting to the factory. That is not buying from Vietnam at its best. That is making the best of a factory somebody happened to introduce.
Why This Happens
The importer is not stupid. The importer is busy.
A serious buyer cannot spend months or years driving around Vietnam assessing hundreds of factories, reading production culture, judging internal capability, checking what is real and what is showroom decoration, understanding who owns what, who subcontracts what, and who can deliver under pressure.
That’s why intermediaries exist.
If the intermediary also starts with the factory, the intermediary and the buyer may be perfectly on the same page. But then the importer is back in the same weak position, just with another entity sitting in between
The S2U Triangle
At S2U Design, we use the opposite model. Customer first. Product second. Factory last.
First, I need to understand the buyer’s business. Who are you selling to? What does your customer expect? What position does this product have in your range? Are you competing on price, quality, speed, uniqueness, compliance, service, margin, or all of it at the same time?
Then we focus on understanding the product properly as part of the buyer’s business model. Where does it sit in the portfolio? What expectations does it have to fulfil? Only then do we get into the specifics: design, construction, materials, packaging, assembly, hardware, documentation, testing and compliance.
Staying on the Front Foot
In the S2U model, the factories that cannot or will not work to the criteria resulting from the initial understanding disappear. We do not need to negotiate with them. We do not need to ask them politely. We do not need to worry whether they can be persuaded.
That is how the buyer stays on the front foot. The best results appear when the buyer remains the expert in the buyer’s own business.
My job is to translate that business reality into Vietnam manufacturing reality.
When that is done properly, questions like “will the factory include assembly instructions?” become irrelevant. Because the answers are already built into the process.
And we select the factory that produces your goods because it fits that reality. Not the other way around.
www.s2udesign.com
henrik@s2udesign.com
