武汉大学生命科学学院：《分子生物学》（英文版）Getting What You Need from a Supplier

Molecular Biology Problem Solver: A Laboratory Guide. Edited by Alan S Gerstein opyright◎2001 ISBNS:0-471-37972-7( Paper);0-47 (Electronic) 2 Getting What You Need from a Supplier Tom Tyre and Greg Krueger How Can You Work Most Efficiently With Your Supplier? All Compal Are the same? Big ls better, small is better? Is the Product Manufactured by the Company That Sells It? Does a Company Test Every Application for a Product? 2223334 How Well will the Product perform? Are Identical Products Manufactured identically? Will a Company Inform You When They Change the Product? How Can You Work Most Efficiently--and Pleasantly- with a Sales Representative? 14 What Can a sales Rep do for You? 5 What Should You Expect from a Sales Rep? 15 How Can You get what you want from a sales re 8 Know Exactly What You Need Know Your quantity Needs and fr 8 Know Your Spending Lit Document Your needs 8 Identify the Right Manufacturer 19 Obtain a document that details the Order

11 2 Getting What You Need from a Supplier Tom Tyre and Greg Krueger How Can You Work Most Efficiently With Your Supplier? . . . 12 All Companies Are the Same? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Big Is Better, Small Is Better? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Is the Product Manufactured by the Company That Sells It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Does a Company Test Every Application for a Product? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 How Well Will the Product Perform? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Are Identical Products Manufactured Identically? . . . . . . . . . 14 Will a Company Inform You When They Change the Product? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 How Can You Work Most Efficiently—and Pleasantly— with a Sales Representative? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 What Can a Sales Rep Do for You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 What Should You Expect from a Sales Rep? . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 How Can You Get What You Want from a Sales Rep? . . . . 16 Ordering a Custom Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Know Exactly What You Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Know Your Quantity Needs and Frequency of Delivery . . . 18 Know Your Spending Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Document Your Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Identify the Right Manufacturer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Obtain a Document That Details the Order Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Molecular Biology Problem Solver: A Laboratory Guide. Edited by Alan S. Gerstein Copyright © 2001 by Wiley-Liss, Inc. ISBNs: 0-471-37972-7 (Paper); 0-471-22390-5 (Electronic)

Resolving Problems Solving Problems by Yourself Example of Using the Six Problem-Solving Steps: The DNA That Wasnt There Solving Problems with the Help of the Supplier 25 Contacting the Supplier HOW CANYOU WORK MOST EFFICIENTLY WITHYOUR SUPPLIER? Companies hire researchers, license ideas, generate much useful data that aren't always published, and fund scholarships. Famil- iarity with the corporate mindset, structure and resources can help you obtain what you need and avoid problems you dont want All Companies Are the Same? All companies are not the same, and this fact is becoming truer everyday. Today a company selling research reagents may consist of a scientist turned entrepreneur working out of a home office From a home in the midwest, the scientist might incorporate in Delaware. Once set up as a corporation, she may find someone else to make the wonder reagent in California and then arrange for some other company to package, label, and distribute the wonder reagent. No board rooms, no business lunches, and prac ically no one for a customer to complain to when things go wrong At the other end of the spectrum is a corporation doing business in 50 countries with sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. of course, with a well-known name on the tip of every scientist's tongue and a great reputation, super big company is much easier to find and much easier to reach for help you need. Don't count on it Each company has its own goals, dreams (i.e, visions) and per onality. Within large companies, each division might have a distinct philosophy and operating strategy. Satisfaction with the products and services from an instrument division doesnt guarantee similar performance from a reagent division Big ls better, small Is Better? Whether Big is better or Small is better depends on whether they fulfill your needs. Small will often have the greater desire, since even the smallest amount of business you send to them will ficant to smalls bottom line. but it will often lack the resources, knowledge, or external contacts to fulfill your needs that are out of the mainstream of its operation. This conflict may result in Small promising you something it can't deliver Tyre and Krueger

Resolving Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Solving Problems by Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Example of Using the Six Problem-Solving Steps: The DNA That Wasn’t There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Solving Problems with the Help of the Supplier . . . . . . . . . 25 Contacting the Supplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 HOW CAN YOU WORK MOST EFFICIENTLY WITH YOUR SUPPLIER? Companies hire researchers, license ideas, generate much useful data that aren’t always published, and fund scholarships. Famil￾iarity with the corporate mindset, structure and resources can help you obtain what you need and avoid problems you don’t want. All Companies Are the Same? All companies are not the same, and this fact is becoming truer everyday. Today a company selling research reagents may consist of a scientist turned entrepreneur working out of a home office. From a home in the midwest, the scientist might incorporate in Delaware. Once set up as a corporation, she may find someone else to make the wonder reagent in California and then arrange for some other company to package, label, and distribute the wonder reagent. No board rooms, no business lunches, and prac￾tically no one for a customer to complain to when things go wrong. At the other end of the spectrum is a corporation doing business in 50 countries with sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Of course, with a well-known name on the tip of every scientist’s tongue and a great reputation, super big company is much easier to find and much easier to reach for help you need. Don’t count on it. Each company has its own goals, dreams (i.e., visions) and per￾sonality. Within large companies, each division might have a distinct philosophy and operating strategy. Satisfaction with the products and services from an instrument division doesn’t guarantee similar performance from a reagent division. Big Is Better, Small Is Better? Whether Big is better or Small is better depends on whether they fulfill your needs. Small will often have the greater desire, since even the smallest amount of business you send to them will be significant to Small’s bottom line. But it will often lack the resources, knowledge, or external contacts to fulfill your needs that are out of the mainstream of its operation. This conflict may result in Small promising you something it can’t deliver. 12 Tyre and Krueger

Big on the other hand will tend to have access to more internal nd external resources. A special request may be easily within Bigs knowledge and capacity to deliver. But how much are you willing to buy? If it isn't enough, Big wont have the incentive to do something unique for you. It just wouldnt make economi sense. If Big does its job right, you will quickly know it isn't willing to deliver, and you can go looking for another supplier Is the Product Manufactured by the company That sells It? Some companies only sell products which they conceive, de velop, and manufacture. Other suppliers only distribute products manufactured by other firms. Many, perhaps most companies, do some of both The true manufacturer of a product may not be indi cated on a package. If you are satisfied with the product 's perfor- mance and support, its origin isn't an issue. But it may become an issue when problems arise, since the original manufacturer will generally have the most knowledge about the product. Does a Company Test Every Application for a Product? The research community regularly generates novel applications for commercial products. Combine this with limited application resources by suppliers, and the result is that a company tests only those applications it judges most important to the majority of the research community. If your application isn't mentioned by the manufacturer, odds are that application hasnt been tested or has been attempted an insignificant number of times. It never hurts to contact the company. While the company may not have tested the product in your particular application, your call might persuade the company to do so. It is not uncommon for suppliers to provide product at little or no cost in exchange for application data generated by the customer. Manufacturers also might have a database of researchers who' ve attempted your application. The Methods and Reagents bulletin board located in theBiosciWebsite(http://www.bio.net/hypermail/methodsisa productive location to ask if a product has ever been tested in your particular application. This site can also help you locate and obtain hard-to-find reagents How Well will the Product perform? As alluded to throughout this chapter, it is impossible for a supplier to guarantee the performance of every product with every sample source. But in todays competitive marketplace any reputable supplier will do its best to guarantee that advertising Getting What You Need from a Supplier

Big on the other hand will tend to have access to more internal and external resources. A special request may be easily within Big’s knowledge and capacity to deliver. But how much are you willing to buy? If it isn’t enough, Big won’t have the incentive to do something unique for you. It just wouldn’t make economic sense. If Big does its job right, you will quickly know it isn’t willing to deliver, and you can go looking for another supplier. Is the Product Manufactured by the Company That Sells It? Some companies only sell products which they conceive, de￾velop, and manufacture. Other suppliers only distribute products manufactured by other firms. Many, perhaps most companies, do some of both.The true manufacturer of a product may not be indi￾cated on a package. If you are satisfied with the product’s perfor￾mance and support, its origin isn’t an issue. But it may become an issue when problems arise, since the original manufacturer will generally have the most knowledge about the product. Does a Company Test Every Application for a Product? The research community regularly generates novel applications for commercial products. Combine this with limited application resources by suppliers, and the result is that a company tests only those applications it judges most important to the majority of the research community. If your application isn’t mentioned by the manufacturer, odds are that application hasn’t been tested or has been attempted an insignificant number of times. It never hurts to contact the company. While the company may not have tested the product in your particular application, your call might persuade the company to do so. It is not uncommon for suppliers to provide product at little or no cost in exchange for application data generated by the customer. Manufacturers also might have a database of researchers who’ve attempted your application. The Methods and Reagents bulletin board located in the Biosci Web site (http://www.bio.net/hypermail/methods/) is a productive location to ask if a product has ever been tested in your particular application.This site can also help you locate and obtain hard-to-find reagents. How Well Will the Product Perform? As alluded to throughout this chapter, it is impossible for a supplier to guarantee the performance of every product with every sample source. But in today’s competitive marketplace any reputable supplier will do its best to guarantee that advertising Getting What You Need from a Supplier 13

claims match actual performance. In addition third-party review- ers help ensure advertising claims aren't overly exaggerated These third party(and hopefully objective) reviews of commer- cial products are provided at the following Web sites TheScientisthttp://www.thescientist.com BIOSCI Meth http://www.bio.net/hypermail/methods Biowire,http://www.biowire.com Bi compare http://www.biocompare.com Are Identical Products Manufactured Identically? When different companies seem to manufacture identical items, there may be differences in the production methods. For example, company A might quantitate the activity of Tag dna polymerase after packaging because company As automated dis pensing equipment might cause foaming of the protein and thus nstability. Alternatively, company b may never test the activity of he Taq polymerase after packaging because it is manually dis- pensed, a procedure that doesnt harm the activity of the enzyme The difficulty for you is that switching manufacturers may change performance more than you expect Will a Company Inform You When They Change the product Manufacturers prefer not to change production strategies, but sometimes no choice exists: raw materials become unavailable broken equipment cant be replaced, or people leave the company and take away the knowledge for synthesizing a product Changes are not always announced to the public. Responsible companies try to judge the impact of a change and determine its effect on the research community, but it is impossible to correctly predict the impact for everyone. If the change is thought to be nificant, products might be labeled New and Improved, instructions might be changed, or packaging might be changed. If you're not if the changes will and get the details of the modifications. The manufacturer might have experimental data that will help you evaluate their impact HOW CAN YOU WORK MOST EFFICIENTLY-AND LEASANTLY-WITHA SALES REPRESENTATIVE? The preceding section discussed the inner workings of equip- nent and reagent manufacturers. The next discussion focuses on Tyre and Ki

claims match actual performance. In addition third-party review￾ers help ensure advertising claims aren’t overly exaggerated. These third party (and hopefully objective) reviews of commer￾cial products are provided at the following Web sites: • The Scientist, http://www.thescientist.com • BIOSCI Methods Group, http://www.bio.net/hypermail/methods • Biowire, http://www.biowire.com • Biocompare, http://www.biocompare.com Are Identical Products Manufactured Identically? When different companies seem to manufacture identical items, there may be differences in the production methods. For example, company A might quantitate the activity of Taq DNA polymerase after packaging because company A’s automated dis￾pensing equipment might cause foaming of the protein and thus instability. Alternatively, company B may never test the activity of the Taq polymerase after packaging because it is manually dis￾pensed, a procedure that doesn’t harm the activity of the enzyme. The difficulty for you is that switching manufacturers may change performance more than you expect. Will a Company Inform You When They Change the Product? Manufacturers prefer not to change production strategies, but sometimes no choice exists: raw materials become unavailable, broken equipment can’t be replaced, or people leave the company and take away the knowledge for synthesizing a product. Changes are not always announced to the public. Responsible companies try to judge the impact of a change and determine its effect on the research community, but it is impossible to correctly predict the impact for everyone. If the change is thought to be sig￾nificant,products might be labeled New and Improved,instructions might be changed, or packaging might be changed. If you’re not sure if the changes will affect your research, contact the company and get the details of the modifications. The manufacturer might have experimental data that will help you evaluate their impact. HOW CAN YOU WORK MOST EFFICIENTLY—AND PLEASANTLY—WITH A SALES REPRESENTATIVE? The preceding section discussed the inner workings of equip￾ment and reagent manufacturers. The next discussion focuses on 14 Tyre and Krueger

strategies to manage your relationship with a companys sales rep- resentative(sales rep) What Can a sales Rep Do for You? a good sales rep can help you determine what you need, what ou don't need, and the most cost-effective way to get it. As a conduit to a company's administrative and scientific resources, a sales rep can help you resolve bureaucratic problems, receive tech nical information in a timely fashion, make sure you clearly under stand all the nuances of a price quote, and help you obtain special order items What Should You Expect from a Sales Rep? While you and your sales rep may think differently, you should be made to feel confident that advancing your research is impor tant to your sales rep. Respect for you and your time, and the confidentiality of your research should also be maintained. As discussed below, good salespeople love to know "the inside scoop and take personal pride in their customer's research, but you shouldn,t have to worry that their exuberance for your work results in confidential details discussed with your competitors The best way to determine a rep's trustworthiness is to discuss other work in the field. If you're suddenly learning details about the competition that you would never share with the outside world until papers are published, you have reason to wonder if your someone else is buying(unless the researcher has agreed to serve as a reference)also is cause for concern. You have every right to expect that even your most mundane dealings with the company are kept confidential Is it reasonable to expect your rep to be thoroughly familiar with the technical aspects of their products? If they represent a catalog of 13,000 items, probably not. If the product line is more limited and highly technical in nature, you should expect a high degree of technical competence. In either case a good rep employed by a company that truly cares about their customers should be able to deliver answers to any questions within two to three business days. As is true with business in general, your sales representative is probably managing her territory by the Pareto principle. That is 80% of her business comes from 20% of the customers while the majority of reps want desperately to assist all customers and treat them equally, the reality is that the elite 20% are going to get the Getting What You Need from a Supplier

strategies to manage your relationship with a company’s sales rep￾resentative (sales rep). What Can a Sales Rep Do for You? A good sales rep can help you determine what you need, what you don’t need, and the most cost-effective way to get it. As a conduit to a company’s administrative and scientific resources, a sales rep can help you resolve bureaucratic problems, receive tech￾nical information in a timely fashion, make sure you clearly under￾stand all the nuances of a price quote, and help you obtain special order items. What Should You Expect from a Sales Rep? While you and your sales rep may think differently, you should be made to feel confident that advancing your research is impor￾tant to your sales rep. Respect for you and your time, and the confidentiality of your research should also be maintained. As discussed below, good salespeople love to know “the inside scoop” and take personal pride in their customer’s research, but you shouldn’t have to worry that their exuberance for your work results in confidential details discussed with your competitors. The best way to determine a rep’s trustworthiness is to discuss other work in the field. If you’re suddenly learning details about the competition that you would never share with the outside world until papers are published, you have reason to wonder if your ideas are being similarly discussed. Discussions about what someone else is buying (unless the researcher has agreed to serve as a reference) also is cause for concern. You have every right to expect that even your most mundane dealings with the company are kept confidential. Is it reasonable to expect your rep to be thoroughly familiar with the technical aspects of their products? If they represent a catalog of 13,000 items, probably not. If the product line is more limited and highly technical in nature, you should expect a high degree of technical competence. In either case a good rep employed by a company that truly cares about their customers should be able to deliver answers to any questions within two to three business days. As is true with business in general, your sales representative is probably managing her territory by the Pareto principle. That is, 80% of her business comes from 20% of the customers. While the majority of reps want desperately to assist all customers and treat them equally, the reality is that the elite 20% are going to get the Getting What You Need from a Supplier 15