The Fox Report

By Greg Fox, VP of Sales

I received an email the other day. The name across the inbox was familiar. It belonged to a manager of an overseas supplier that SIGMA has worked with for a number of years. Anticipating the usual questions about the health of the US market and expectations for the balance of the year, I was already mentally drafting my response prior to even reading his email. To my surprise, the email only included a cursory comment about business. He sent the email primarily to ask about my family and how everyone was doing these days.

As I drafted my reply, I thought about how long I’d known this manager. It’s been over 30 years. I visited his home in India. He’s visited my home in Alabama. He held my daughters as toddlers and I’d watched his sons grow into mature men, successful in their chosen career paths. Along the way, we’ve worked together to grow our businesses. We’ve experienced together our successes and setbacks through the decades; however, our partnership is strong today as any day in the past.

Folks in the industry often ask how SIGMA can depend on foundries that we don’t own. To me, the familiarity of decades of business creates an understanding, a rhythm if you will, for both sides. That rhythm that embraces the ebbs and flows of business has served itself well this year. After the heady times in 2022, demand has dropped precipitously this year. Yet, our production centers have adapted and continue to provide a steady flow of product to SIGMA. Our stateside inventories are healthy and our supply chain stable.

As we move toward 2024, our deep-rooted, long-standing production partnerships have positioned SIGMA to support the industry as markets improve, as I believe they will, over the course of next year.

As I responded to the email, I reported that the family is doing great. I hope yours is as well.