It may come as some surprise but finding a b2b manufacturing platform around the world is extremely hard, let alone finding a b2b manufacturing platform in Shenzhen. When you’re developing a product, more often than not, it’s usually a b2b device, you will be hard struck on finding a platform capable of supporting the manufacturing of the complexity of your b2b device at a high level of engineering and quality.
Not including basic IoT devices, but rather, medical devices, agricultural devices, or products designed to support renewable energy. The platforms just aren’t established to facilitate the low production order that many b2b devices require to enter the market.
Consider this, many contract manufacturing companies in and around the world survive by taking on large volume orders. These orders often can be between 40K – 5M units a month, however, as a b2b company, your industry wouldn’t necessary need this many units, especially at the beginning stages of your manufacturing process. And so, you’ll be forced to downsize from a tier-one manufacturer to a tier-two/three line.
For a b2b company downsizing to a less quality manufacturing company can ultimately ruin the entire product’s performance, which, in turn, will leave the company with a less than desirable device when entering the market. Here’s the problem, the large contract manufacturers have all the infrastructure, expertise, and resources needed for b2b companies to produce their products, however, they don’t have the volume order to use these facilities. So, where do companies go in these situations?
For a b2b company downsizing to a less quality manufacturing company can ultimately ruin the entire product’s performance, which, in turn, will leave the company with a less than desirable device when entering the market. Here’s the problem, the large contract manufacturers have all the infrastructure, expertise, and resources needed for b2b companies to produce their products, however, b2b companies (startups) don’t have the volume order to use these facilities. So, where do companies go in these situations?
Companies like SVV (Shenzhen Valley Ventures) have built a platform dedicated to solving this problem. The manufacturing facilities used by SVV are designed to support the low volume orders required for b2b manufacturing whilst maintaining the tier-one quality status. The low volume b2b manufacturing model is hard to support as it has a knock-on effect throughout the entire process. For example, why many large contract manufacturers are unwilling to support low volume b2b manufacturing is first, because of the supply chain. If you’re manufacturing several hundreds of units a month, that also means you need to buy several hundreds of components. Supply chain companies have a similar business model as large factories, being that, they also only take-on large volume orders rather than smaller ones.
SVV has integrated themselves into the same supply chain their CEO and Co-founder, co-founded back in 2004, ZOWEE Technology, by utilizing their existing supply chain they can use it to order low volume components. With the added bonus that all the components have been pre-approved, not only by ZOWEE, but also ZOWEE’s clients, ensuring high-quality materials.
In conclusion, whether be a startup company or an SME, you’ll always need a pilot-testing platform before ramping your production up to the 100’s of thousands of units, leaving you in a bit of limbo before scaling. As you can see b2b manufacturing can be very troublesome and has many indications of being more and more important to support the growth of innovation.
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