Supplyframe is the leading provider of Design-to-Source Intelligence for the global electronics value chain. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Supplyframe chief marketing officer & SaaS leader Richard Barnett to learn more about the company.
Richard Barnett’s Background
What is Richard Barnett’s background? Barnett said:
“I was born in Oregon, but my family moved to Houston when I was five, so I consider myself a Texan. Now, I live in Austin, a wonderful home base, but it works best for me when it’s balanced with opportunities to engage with different markets and team members across the world.”
“I’ve spent close to 30 years within the enterprise software market focused on software and solutions that drive transformational business value both for companies and industries in supply chain procurement. Most recently, I’ve been focused on the electronics ecosystem. I’ve enjoyed growing and taking on new leadership positions in sales, marketing, and product strategy. Before joining Supplyframe as chief marketing officer and SaaS sales leader about five years ago, I worked for various companies, including E2open, GT Nexus, i2 Technologies, and Microsoft.”
“My undergraduate degree in political science and master’s degree in international policy studies from Stanford served me well as I’ve visited businesses in 56 countries. I have spent a great amount of time in Japan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region as well as in Europe. I’ve always blended my passion for understanding the global economy and changes in the geopolitical environment to adapt and align specific software capabilities and solutions to global market changes. That has been particularly important during and following the pandemic.”
Formation Of Supplyframe
How did the idea for Supplyframe come together? Barnett shared:
“Supplyframe CEO and founder Steve Flagg and our founding team were inspired by the first transition to the internet and the art of the possible around new forms of digitizing e-commerce and design decisions across the very complex electronics industry. At the time, in 2003, the focus was on imagining a completely new way of aligning innovation around design that involves electronics across the multi-tier value chain and finding new ways to digitize, automate, and enable more intelligent interactions and collaborations across that electronics component value chain.”
“But the vision was always to think about the opportunity across the entire industry. That started with our initial SaaS solution for quote and pricing management. But it quickly evolved into Supplyframe building a digital media network, digitizing the knowledge base of engineering content and communities, and bringing them together in an entirely new way.”
“That is critical for businesses today. As Steve explains in this video, the market is dynamic, and businesses can’t rely on static, stale data. To be more competitive and control their risk, companies need to leverage data that reflects the actual state of the market. Supplyframe is at the heart of a shift in how companies think about, work, design, and manufacture products.”
Core Products
What are Supplyframe’s core products and features? Barnett explained:
“Supplyframe offers a set of software solutions and media and e-commerce services that transform the way new engineering design and innovation is streamlined. That helps innovators in the semiconductor arena and components suppliers engage with and educate the global engineering community, and then brings intelligence from the Design-to-Source Intelligence Network into the context of decision-making at every point in the innovation lifecycle.”
“Our SaaS solutions help companies in various markets across the globe to make better tradeoff decisions about cost, risk, and sustainability on new bills of materials that include electronics components. That also brings together the broader new product introduction, procurement, and supply management processes within each of these companies in a more connected way.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Barnett and the team face in building the company? Barnett acknowledged:
“The leadership opportunity at Supplyframe has been exciting and challenging at the same time. I have drawn on many lessons I learned over many years around how to scale successfully, particularly when you’re in a market with a low level of maturity. That requires a combination of education, identifying key early adopters, and bringing measurable value to customers and helping them build momentum to drive needed change within their companies.”
“It’s much easier to compete in an established market category because budgets are already defined, and there’s a consensus around those being proven solution areas in which to invest.”
“However, it’s always more rewarding, but also more challenging, when you’re in an earlier stage innovation area that requires everything you’ve got to create a go-to-market strategy and work to evangelize the new opportunities available through the innovation area. That’s what we’ve really been focused on. It takes time, but it’s super rewarding when you work with leading customers that take the ball and run with it – and really start achieving measurable value.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Barnett’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Barnett reflected:
“Becoming part of Siemens, which acquired Supplyframe in 2021, has been an incredible experience. We spent months and around 80 meetings during the pandemic exploring Siemens’ interest in a strategic acquisition of Supplyframe, identifying and building out the opportunities for innovation and the vision for the future, and then successfully seeing that work to its conclusion. COVID travel restrictions meant that we had to do the meetings over Zoom and Teams, so the best memory for me was when we finally brought all the key stakeholders together a year later in Las Vegas. It was the first time we could see everyone in person with whom we’d been working with so intensely for months. Everyone felt like it was one of the most important, highest-impact strategic business initiatives they had helped to achieve in their careers. Celebrating that with everyone was wonderful.”
“The acquisition provided recognition of the value and uniqueness of Supplyframe’s strategy of connecting and engaging with the global electronics community and translating that into real value for customers over almost 20 years. It was an opportunity for Siemens AG to learn from our experience and accelerate its digital business model in every key industry in which it operates. It brought together complementary solutions to connect and extend the leadership and market position Siemens Software had in product lifecycle management, engineering, and manufacturing into the adjacent, connected areas of procurement and supply management.”
“Within 18 months, the scale and coverage of Siemens enabled Supplyframe to massively accelerate our go-to-market presence and engagement in almost every major geography globally. With over 1,000 sales and market-facing Siemens’ software team members globally, Supplyframe has now been able to enter key markets, including Japan, Korea, India, and most of Europe, and we have been able to extend our presence in China significantly.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Barnett cited:
“Steve Flagg established the company back in 2003. That same year, the first Apple iPhone debuted, and the Consumer Electronics Association noted the growing number of consumers upgrading from analog to digital products. That trend accelerated and spread across industries.”
“We spent the next few years building our DSI Network, digitizing product catalogs and engineering search and discovery, creating communities, and bringing them into an integrated network. As part of those efforts, we acquired Findchips.com, a well-known search engine that electronics product design engineers use to seek electronics components for their innovations.”
“From 2016 to 2018, we rolled out new SaaS solutions for contract manufacturers and OEMs.”
“In 2020, we launched the DSI platform and solutions, creating a new product category. These solutions, which are powered by Supplyframe’s DSI Network, serve global manufacturers and component manufacturers and distributors across a range of electronics industry verticals.”
“Siemens acquired Supplyframe roughly a year later.”
Evolution Of Supplyframe’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Barnett noted:
“During our initial phase, Supplyframe was focused on building a network through acquisition and innovation. That network connects over 27,000 suppliers and 80 global distributors and provides information about more than 600 million parts. Creating the DSI Network took years of organic growth, trusted relationships, partnerships, and innovation.”
“Once that network was in place, we saw the opportunity to start connecting and drawing insights from it to create our DSI platform and SaaS solutions for specific business processes. The work we did to create solutions that deliver real-time insights about market dynamics so companies can lower their risk through better decision-making is transformational and unique.”
“Now that we’re part of Siemens, we are connecting that into existing digital threads in key Siemens industries, including aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer goods, high tech, and life sciences. That connected capability accelerates digital transformation and transforms businesses, so they’re better positioned to face big challenges. Companies can incorporate better intelligence and product design sustainability, improve resilience at the point of design, be more agile and responsive, and get innovative solutions to market faster in a world where variability, risk, and constant change are the new normal.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Barnett about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“Our business impact is strategic and transformational for customers, but it varies by industry.
— A large aerospace and defense company identified that it could eliminate over 13,000 hours of manual engineering effort with the full adoption of Supplyframe’s DSI solutions.
— A major consumer electronics brand freed up 65% of its engineering capacity that had been spent on redesigns due to supply chain shortages and used it to accelerate more than $1 billion of new product innovation that had been on hold for two to three years.
— Through a recently announced initiative with Jabil, we are working to reduce the cycle time for quote orders, supply, and collaboration with key partners by up to 90%.”
Revenue
When asking Barnett about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We have experienced significant growth in new customers, ARR revenue, and, more importantly, engagement across the DSI Network over the last three years.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Barnett assessed:
“Supplyframe is in an interesting position. While we have been a pioneer in creating an entirely new and much-needed category, we connect to some very large, well-established markets.”
“The total product lifecycle management (PLM) market is valued at roughly $11 billion today. The supply chain management and planning total addressable market is around $18 billion.”
“The market we play connects to both established categories. While low in terms of maturity and digitization, we estimate that total addressable market at over $1 billion. This market will continue to grow as companies progress in advancing their design-to-source processes in a more connected way.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Supplyframe from its competition? Barnett affirmed:
“Our team has deep domain knowledge and expertise. Many Supplyframe team members have spent more than 20 years in the electronics industry in engineering, supply management, distribution, and contract manufacturing. Our domain knowledge and the trust we’ve earned through collaboration have helped us to create purpose-built solutions that address market needs and accelerate what the overall electronics community is trying to achieve together.”
“Supplyframe is also unique in the way we bring new forms of outside-in intelligence to enterprise decision-making, which has typically had an overreliance on data and information that’s been trapped inside the enterprise. To handle market requirements today and transform their decision-making, companies need a combination of real-time, always-on, outside-in intelligence around risk, cost, and lead time in combination with their own enterprise data. The companies that adopt this approach are realizing massive impact very quickly.”
“Now that we’re a part of Siemens, we’re able to connect and build a digital transformation strategy that is comprehensive and transformational, from innovation through design and manufacturing and all the way through to after-market services, for customers and industries.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Supplyframe’s future company goals? Barnett concluded:
“Insights from our network provide real-time visibility around cost, inventory, and lead time to transform decision-making. Our next innovation areas include connecting and extending Siemens’ digital threads and existing key solutions for a more integrated process.”
“Supplyframe is also evolving in our commitment to address sustainability so our customers can make more balanced tradeoff decisions across risk, cost, and now the sustainability impact of new products. This is crucial because 80% of a product’s cost, risk, and sustainability is locked in at the point of design. So companies need to shift left and use new forms of intelligence earlier in the new product design process to improve their products’ performance, profitability, sustainability, and more importantly, the ability of those products to address customer needs.”
