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New CEO Jeff Waters Outlines his Roadmap for Isola
February 8, 2016 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 26 minutes
Waters: I look at it as, what are the assets that Isola has that nobody else has? It gets back to the worldwide footprint that we have. If I am Cisco, for example, and I could just have easily used Alcatel-Lucent or Huawei for that matter, what I want is the ability to get a means of differentiation from as many technologies as I can. They want to work with somebody that has the best R&D and the best product development people to help take the needs that they have and translate them into enabling technologies. They absolutely want that.
They also want somebody who can help them scale to production with more mature products at a price point that can still help them be successful in the market as the product lifecycle goes. From an OEM’s perspective, I want the technical engagement, but I also want that ability to ramp up to high volume, cost-effective manufacturing.
The question is, can somebody do that? Can somebody be that real partner to a company like a Cisco and all the PCB fabs that support a Cisco? Can somebody be an effective collaborator and customer for a company like Cisco and span that? Because if you could, that would be ideal.
Matties: That's great for them and it’s great for you; it clarifies the supply chain as to what the real needs are through the experts of the base material.
Waters: Exactly. There are a lot of things that you need to do well in order to get there. Traditionally, there's always been this belief in business that you can't do both of those things. You can't be the innovative product leader on one end and the low-cost manufacturer on the other. I have a hypothesis, and it gets back to listening to, enabling, and empowering the different leaders that you have. We have an entire organization in Huizhou, China that I don't need engaging with Cisco. Their whole focus is on low-cost manufacturing and high throughput, low cycle time manufacturing.
Matties: Best yields.
Waters: Right, that is their focus. Where I think it typically gets screwed up is that you have some guy like me who really likes his own thoughts and ideas and when I go in and talk to China they tell me, "Hey, here's what we need to do to be successful," but I have my opinions and I basically force fit them into what I think is the right answer. If you have good, competent leaders and you let them decide and say, "Tell me what we need to do to compete as a low-cost manufacturer in the heart of China," then you can get there. There are pieces, in between, which are going to be the hard part. Like how do you then translate and transfer that technology from cutting edge and tougher to manufacture to easier to manufacture, and then to really easy to manufacture?
I think if we can get good at that, it is an upside competitively, but also an upside from the revenue perspective.
Matties: The approach is you really empower them by building a team that is so well-aligned that they feel a part of it and they want to do a better job rather than just working for a paycheck, even in China.
Waters: Absolutely. I've always been most inspired when I've been in the kind of an organization where you feel like you're being heard and people care about you, which is also a part of being heard.
I think it's true in China as it is in Kansas City. I will say this, if you look at some of the base products we have like the 370HR, and increasingly now we're going to see the 185HR products, those are the mainstays in the market. If somebody wants product that is not going to fail, they use that product. That speaks to the capabilities that we have. We've fallen off the wagon here over the last couple of years, but we're back on the wagon. You're going to see that type of capability go back into quickly released, on time, reliable products that are going to be enabling to the customer base. Then, you bring in the manufacturing capability that we have in North America, Europe and also in China. If we could just get people inspired and feeling like a part of this journey and buying into the vision that we can be successful, we're going to be able to build what we just described and should be able to succeed.
Matties: Well, it starts right here with you. Is there anything that we should talk about that we haven't discussed?
Waters: There was one other thing that I forgot to mention that attracted me to Isola. If you look at some of the markets where we have developments and where I think we're going to be successful, one is in automotive and in driver assistance and the growing market there, and the other one is in the data center. Those are the two markets that everybody's flocking to these days because it's where a lot of the growth is, but we really do have some assets there that I think are differentiating. For me, these are two markets that I have invested a lot of my time into, data center more recently, but automotive going back to the mid '90s up until now.
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