| Newsletter May 2008
Q&A: John Daly, South Fork Instruments
Originally
from the UK, John Daly lives in Pleasanton, California, a few
miles south east of San Francisco. and runs South Fork Instruments,
(www.southforkinst.com),a
distributor specialising in online analysis instrumentation.
Below,
John answers some questions about his experiences so far.
For
a UK manufacturer seeking to enter the US market, where is a good
place to start ? Is geographical focus (i.e. starting with representation
in say California or New England) better than trying to achieve
full coverage ?
Industry
in the USA is very regionally based. For instance, Biotech is
mostly centred around specific sites – Boston/New England,
North Carolina, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco. By contrast,
large pharmaceuticals are in different places – the Mid
Atlantic states, Illinois, Indiana to name a few so it is probably
very important to focus on these areas first and backfill later
with other states/regions in the US where there is some potential
business to get but not a large concentration of opportunities.
Getting good representation can also be difficult (as it is all
over the world!) as many rep firms look good on paper and in face
to face meetings, but don’t have the ability to strongly
promote your product and turn out to be reliant upon you to provide
leads for them to follow up. It’s important to really find
out who they are really seeing at various companies, meet their
sales people and find out what generates the bulk of their income.
Many rep companies have two or three hot product lines and spend
95% of their time on them, leaving you with little exposure. Set
goals and follow up often.
As
an Englishman settled in California, what cultural differences
between the two countries have surprised you most ?
In the USA,
it seems that nobody walks anywhere and the biggest surprise apart
from the number of vehicles on the road is the high concentration
of large pickup trucks. I drive twice as many miles here than
I ever did in the UK and I do that in an SUV. In England, it was
a Mini (and man, I wish I still had it). The other thing that
comes to mind is that I’ve always been amazed by the widespread
use of personal checks in shops and supermarkets to pay for shopping
etc. You would think that in a financially dynamic country like
the USA, people would be using credit and debit cards everywhere
and while this is true (even though hardly any have chips in them!),
you still get to wait for people to write checks at the checkout
counter in Safeway (no check card needed, just valid ID). In some
ways the USA is ahead of Europe and in some ways behind. It does
take some getting used to.
Do you see the current financial crisis having any impact on the
technology sector ?
Absolutely.
The rock bottom value of the dollar at the moment makes shopping
in the USA very attractive to Europe, but it is the pits the other
way around! Importing equipment into the USA leads to a high price
tag that is not comparable with US made competitive products.
And it’s only going to get worse.
Are
you noticing China starting to have a presence in the instrumentation
sector ?
Not really.
Chinese manufactured lab products are starting to appear, but
they still bear brands known in the West. Instrumentation volume
does not have the scale that allows low cost manufacturing to
make sense. By the time they are shipped in one at a time, they
are expensive. I’m sure it will come though. I am working
with a Chinese Manufacturer of instrumentation and hope to make
some inroads into the US market with their products.
Are
there any US equivalents of CE markings which instrument manufacturers
should be aware of ?
There are actually no statutory markings that I can think of but
products must (of course) be safe and must comply with the UCC
– Uniform Consumer Code (different terminology in different
states) – rules where applicable. Essentially, a product
must be meet electrical regulations and must perform as advertised.
Third party certification companies are commonly used to test
products for safety etc. The main one is UL – Underwriters
Laboratory – and this is often required on equipment as
a specified certification. Some authorities (City of Los Angeles
is one) require this on all equipment they buy, so it is worth
investigating. Don’t forget to have product liability insurance.
The USA is highly litigious.
Finally, any stories which illustrate the life of
a distributor in the States ?
The amazing
thing about the USA is its size. I can fly to the East Coast and
still only be half way home, and it took 6 hours to get there!
Planes are like flying buses (cattle trucks nowadays) and you
do find yourself using them like that. I am writing this in the
airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, having already been to Houston
for a couple of days and still to spend a day in Salt Lake City.
It’s all too easy to spend all your time working and leave
no time to enjoy life.
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