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Monday, March 02, 2009

Partnerships: Now More Than Ever

One of the most effective and efficient ways to serve SEMI members is to work with other member organizations and associations. It can be effective because other associations can deliver real benefits to SEMI members, such as program content, research reports, technical insights and initiatives, and other valuable services. It can be efficient because SEMI staff can work with one partner, and impact an entire segment of members sharing the common interest. Identifying potential partners and finding common purpose is a critical area that SEMI needs to excel at.

SEMI is a very wide-ranging industry association that spans numerous technologies, industry segments, countries, and professional societies. We are wide but very thin. Many professional and industry organizations are very deep, but narrow in their geographic and technology reach. This reflective harmony provides a natural basis on which to work with many organizations in a win-win relationship. Our reach compliments their depth. By working together, we can both achieve goals that we could not separately.

SEMI works with dozens of industry organizations, media companies, research firms, and technical societies. Our relationship is often based on cross promotion; SEMI promotes a partner's event or organization in exchange for promotion or support of SEMI events and services. Many partners provide technical guidance on SEMI program content at conferences and expositions and some partners offer member discounts on their products.

A recent partnership with the MEMS Industry Group is a good example. Currently SEMI places MIG events on our calendar and is promoting MEMS Marketplace, an online portal that will serve as a matchmaker for companies in the entire MEMS supply chain, in our newsletter. In exchange, MIG will promote SEMICON West to their membership and provide guidance on TechXPOT program content. We have several other industry partners at SEMICON West, including Si2, IMAPS, MEPTEC, International Engineering Consortium, Southwest Test, BITS, OIDA, and more. We partner with IEEE on the Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference, and we should do more them. In PV, we work with EPIA, JPEA, ITRI, SEIA, and many renewable energy organizations.

Sometimes SEMI will partner with a private event organizer like Solar Promotions to put on Intersolar, or with a market research company such as Yole Developpment, when we are confident it will benefit SEMI members.

The driving motivation behind these mutually rewarding agreements is member value; if helping another organization achieve their goals, even with a potentially competitive event, helps SEMI members, that we should find a way to work together.

If there is an organization that you think SEMI should work with, please let us know and we’ll do our best to find a common ground in advancing member value.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom,

Well put!

I think you hit the nail on the head with your statement about being wide but thin, and the need to develop partnerships with deep, but narrow, organizations.

Hopefully it won't be too long before you can add Semi-Directory to the list ;o)

Pradeep Chakraborty said...

Hi Tom,

Nice blog :)!

Thanks for leaving your comments on my blog. Perhaps, we should take our conversation offline as well. I would love to work closely with SEMI and spread its word. :)

Pradeep