The world of business and management has been turned upside down in recent years. Were businesses were once considered top down structures with the boss telling everyone what to do, we now have customer centered companies were the customer indeed comes first. Users must get directly involved by making sure those sales reps and dealers are being their advocates to the manufacturer. Users must insist that manufacturers pay attention to the needs of working lab personnel and not just the more features game. This does not mean more lip service but more direct contact between design teams and users.
Some of the areas concerned about are ergonomics and proprietary lamps. Look around a busy lab. You will see microscopes up on books, tilted and otherwise kludged up. How a microscope fits a user is critical to that user productivity. Manufacturers should be much more conscious of these problems.
Manufacturers should be and now are just beginning to promote adjustable ergo heads made for bio-med application. Control positions should be studied and improved, best price microscopes should be made. The feel of controls should be user adjustable with easy to use mechanisms. There needs to be studies of repetitive motion injuries in microscope users.
In industry companies avoid using any product that only has one supplier. If that supplier goes out of business then they are stuck. Though users will buy microscopes with lamps supplied by one vendor, this should never happen. A standard question when buying a microscope should be, were besides this manufacturer can I get this lamp? If the answer is nowhere then reconsider buying that microscope. There are microscopes out there that will have to be modified or scrapped soon.
A lot of states have gone to a contract pricing system to reduce the expenses of the bid system. Bids are expensive for all concerned from purchasing to the dealer. Even at the pittance they paid was still expensive.
As you are discussing price be frank, bold and treat the money as yours. Act as though you were paying for the microscope out of your own pocket. This will make you a more effective negotiator. Remember that you are not trying to be the reps friend but you are trying to establish a business relationship. When you are talking to the sales representative let them know how important pricing is to you. Ask them for their best price in writing. Do not show this to the competition, this is called shopping the quote and is a despised activity. You may just get a call telling you to bug of, its list price. When negotiating remember that the goal for a good negotiation is two fold, for you to get a good price and still have a good business relationship with the dealer. A couple of good negotiating tactics is to let the sales rep know that you are looking at the competition and that they look good, good prices to. If you need a lot of training admit it to the sales rep but if you do not ask for a price that reflects that.
Take your time when negotiating. If you push to hard and fast the dealer may not take the time to give a good price. Wait, be patient, let the dealer look out at all the stock in the warehouse just sitting there. Call back and ask if this is the best price. Let the dealer know that you have gotten quotes from the competition. Do not name figures but let them know that the competitors number were very good. Sometimes dealers will have equipment that they have used for demos that they ca not sell for new.
When you are negotiating with a representative, you need to know their mark up. You also need to know what profit they have to have before they will loose money. Ask about the price for this demo stock. If it is available, if could be a good deal for you.
