SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Venture Outsource (www.ventureoutsource.com) published findings from its 2011 spring survey of electronics supply chain decision makers across North America, Europe and Asia. Unlike other electronics industry studies relying on a limited number of people with high dollar levels of spending, this survey balanced respondents from different levels within organizations to achieve a nuanced and balanced view of the supply chain. Leading electronics components distributor Digi-Key Corporation (www.digikey.com) sponsored the survey. View complete survey findings at: http://ventureoutsource.com/survey-spring-2011

This recent survey gathered opinions from 412 executives from different market segments of the supply chain, including 179 key decision makers and a further 154 participants involved in the decision-making process of their organizations. The survey drilled deep into the organizations where opinions are formed and decisions are made. Seven out of ten respondents said they were answering for their whole company, not just at the level of a business unit. This is up from the last VentureOutsource.com survey.

Respondents with only a view in the decision-making process tended to provide more optimistic scores, while those that participated in the decision-making process tended to be more conservative.

Key decision makers tended to score between these two extremes, offering a more balanced view on the supply chain, combining their own knowledge, perspective, and concern about how markets develop.

Survey respondents were asked 12 questions regarding expectations about the current and future business environment: employment, business volume, and product pricing and profits. Respondents were asked to rate their views on these questions on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the most negative and 10 for the most optimistic response). One additional open-ended question was presented to respondents pertaining to the electronics supply chain crisis in Japan.

From these core questions asked in the survey, three indices were formed to summarize respondent attitudes toward the state of the electronics supply chain and are examined in detail at: http://ventureoutsource.com/survey-spring-2011

The three indices are Current Index, Future Index and Overall Index, where:

• Current Index – The average of each of the respondent’s scores for their current outlook regarding the economic situation; employment, inventory levels, business volume, and prices.
• Future Index – The average of each of the respondent’s scores for their expectations regarding the economic situation, employment, business volume and profits.
• Overall Index – The average of the two indices above.

More than half of the respondents worked for electronics OEM or contract electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers or original design manufacturing (ODM) companies. The next largest group of respondents were from semiconductor firms. Electronics equipment and component manufacturers generated a combined 21% of respondents. The smallest number of respondents, 25, came from distribution or logistics firms.

80% of survey respondents were actively engaged in purchasing, sales, and operational decision making, thus providing a balanced view of the current and future business outlook in these supply chains.

77% of EMS / ODM respondents indicated they were answering for their whole company.

The survey results show the outlook for the electronics supply chain is improving, a year into the recovery from the great recession. Regarding the future, the survey indicates high expectations for the second half of 2011, with an average score of 6.1 out of 10. Key decision makers were the most optimistic regarding the future, with an average increase between the Current and Future indices of 6.4%.

However, fear, uncertainty, and doubt still reign in regards to the supply chain shocks resulting from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Meanwhile, automotive industry respondents were among the most positive in their outlook, even though they faced the most immediate impact in the supply chain. Also, despite the severity of the crisis, the majority of respondents did not feel inventories would be greatly affected.

By decision-making responsibility, key decision makers in the semiconductor market and in distribution / logistics were the most pessimistic, perhaps because of concern over what the true impact of the Japanese tragedy may prove to be.

Among the most optimistic (by company type) were PC, server, and automotive companies, as well as electronics OEMs, and EMS / ODM firms. Least optimistic were networking and telecommunications respondents, the latter being a curious note considering the expected build-out for mobile data infrastructure.

Compared to the 2010 survey, respondents were also more favorable in their attitudes toward future profits and business volume, growing 12% and 10%, respectively. While future profits had the least positive score among the questions on the future environment in the 2011 spring survey, the increase was significant from last year, indicating much higher expectations from last year.

One area that bucked the trend was in current inventory levels and business volumes. The average score for current inventories was down 5% and current business volume average score was off a point from the previous forecast.

For complete survey results: http://ventureoutsource.com/survey-spring-2011

About VentureOutsource.com

Online knowledge sharing and gathering resource for employees working in electronics OEM companies, electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers, original design manufacturers (ODM), and vendors and suppliers serving the global electronics industry. Electronics Global Network (http://bit.ly/vo-join) lets all site users become members at no-cost and create profiles allowing registered members to private message other registered users and gain exposure in industry and with other members: http://bit.ly/vo-network. Q&A (http://bit.ly/vo-ask) allows any site users to post Questions for all site users to see, and let’s any site user post Answers to those Questions. EMS Resources Directory helps OEMs find potential EMS or ODM partners (http://bit.ly/ems-search). EMS / ODM companies can submit a listing at http://bit.ly/submit-ems More: www.ventureoutsource.com/company-info

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