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The Price Book has to be detailed and proactive enough to deal with future requirements. It must also be comprehensive because it is integral to the activities that determine sales. The goal should be that the Price Book covers 90% of the potential applications. This saves time for product marketing as sales will not have to call you for special information. If you typically anticipate 50 to 100 customer questions that won’t have to be answered, that saves you from 3 to 300 hours of telephone time.

With a complete price book the customer’s order is handled in an efficient way and the order becomes a combination of what is already in the Price Book. You get a clean order; the customer’s expectations are clear; and engineering, operations and service know what to do.

ITRS stands for International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. It is an assessment of semiconductor technology requirements directed at ensuring advancements in the performance of integrated circuits. This assessment (roadmap) is a cooperative effort of global industry manufacturers and suppliers, government organizations, consortia, and universities.

It is a key reference point for the conception and design of new products for semiconductor manufacturing.

PICOS (Program for Improvement of Cost Optimization of Suppliers) was the brainchild of Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriotua, the head of procurement of General Motors in Europe and later Volkswagen. It began in the late 1980s-early 1990s and has morphed into a variety of supply chain management programs.

While it can be based on a desire for a true partnership between customer and supplier, it normally is a one-way street to enrich the customer at the expense of the supplier. On a strategic level it is designed to demoralize the supplier account team; turn every product into a commodity; and leave nothing but price to negotiate at the end of the sales cycle and beyond. On a tactical level, it begins at the front-end of the sales cycle and is a well coordinated plan that influences every member of the sales team, from junior to executive, and takes away all of the supplier initiatives.

According to Semiconductor International Fab update there were forty-eight 300mm fabs in operation at that point in time.

In addition to any company-planned direct mail/email campaign that might go out prior to an exposition, a good sales team member should send personal letters or notes to key people in key accounts. The general subjects of a personal direct mail piece should focus on your personal invitation to the booth to see new products, to meet key company personnel, and/or to learn of a new technology or application that the customer might be able to use.

As that customer’s contact with your company, you should know each of them well enough to know of something that might interest them. If not, invent some excuse to get them to meet you at the show. The purpose is to make a direct connection between the customer and your company's products and personnel.

Make sure that the letters are personal (not in the style of a form letter ). Carefully select the wording of the letter, making certain that it clearly conveys an appealing invitation. The most effective letters are done on personal stationary, not company letterhead. Make sure that the stationary is "different" (i.e., more elegant-looking) even if it has the company logo on top.

The proposal for a high technology product often reads like a technical treatise. To move into the realm of a sales tool it should have a good cover letter that restates the key benefits of the product, specifically applied to the customer being addressed. In other words, it should have the value propositions prepared for that customer. Further, it should carry some closing statement(s) such as suggesting the time you’ll be in touch to discuss delivery and other final arrangements. It should be appealing, hard-hitting and straight-forward.

The best two tools would be a (1) a current list of "benefits-features" that differentiate your product and give the salesperson the information to create "value propositions" specific to the customer and individual customer personnel, and (2) endorsements in the form of references and testimonials.

In some markets like, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China endorsements are essentials. But even in other markets they are crucial, particularly in the semiconductor industry, where equipment and non-commodity materials decisions are often made on a "bet-your-job" basis. A bad decision could cost the company many millions and a good one can suddenly make the decision maker a hero.