Get off the sidelines

Progress: It’s what engineers do. They advance, they grow, and they move forward. To engineers, there is nothing more defeating than standing still or, worse, taking a step back. Yet, for many engineers, 2011 was a year of maintenance or recovery following a layoff or budget cuts. Bill McClean, president of market-research company IC Insights, spoke about 2011’s less-than-expected semiconductor-industry growth, estimates for 2012, and why the always-complex semiconductor market cannot be judged on just one of its aspects. McClean made several wise points based on his more than 30 years of experience tracking the IC industry.


Source: iStockphoto

“We’ve always said that uncertainty is the worst thing in the marketplace,”McClean said. “It’s actually worse than bad news. If you know something is going to be bad, you can plan around it. But uncertainty creates total fear and total apprehension, and it makes people freeze. They don’t do anything; they just sit on the sidelines. 2011 saw a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and that [feeling] showed up in the semiconductor market.”

Look below the surface of this month’s quarterly reports and cheerful toasts from execs at your company holiday parties just a few weeks ago, and you’ll see that a conspicuous—and understandable—amount of fear remains in this industry. After all, 2011 was supposed to be the year of double-digit growth, the return to gains, and the “normalizing” after years of disorder.

Instead, we saw tsunamis, floods, and earthquakes disrupt some lives, supply chains, and purchasing habits. Add in the high unemployment rate in the United States, the economic confusion in Europe, the deaths of some of the industry’s greatest engineers, and the re-emergence—or continuation—of R&D tightening, and you’ll realize that not many in this industry will fondly remember 2011.

It’s now time to move past those woes, however. No one can say for sure that 2012 will be clear of problems. But we can state that it’s no longer 2008, 2009, or 2010, and we’ve closed 2011. It’s time to get off the sidelines and charge forward. Leave the last four years of turmoil behind and move ahead, away from the fear.

We have no control over plenty of things, including natural disasters, death, or the worldwide GDP, but there are things that we—or, perhaps, our managers—can do to get off the sidelines and make progress. Number 1 on that list should be hiring the best people available. Companies don’t grow without talented people, and they don’t grow by overworking the talented people already on staff. Number 2: Take some risks again. Invest time and resources in smart ideas that have potential, not just established product lines. Number 3: Prepare to get knocked down. It’s going to happen. No matter how well you innovate and plan, you will at some point be tackled unexpectedly if you get off the sidelines and into the game. Keep your helmet handy and proceed aggressively but defensively.

As the hangover of 2011 subsides, plan your 2012 with progress in mind. Make it—not maintenance—a priority. Get off the sidelines and back into the game.


Reference
Deffree, Suzanne, “Bill McClean: Don’t broad-brush the semiconductor market,” EDN, Dec 15, 2011, pg 22.