The latest podcast from Electronic Specifier Insights looks at the rebranding of the Interconnect Technology Suppliers Association (ITSA), the voice of the UK interconnect market.
ITSA exists to provide a favourable operating environment for the benefit of the interconnect market and to provide a dynamic network for exploring and co-operating on mutually beneficial opportunities. Key to this success is the collation of key technology and market statistical data.
At a gathering in London, John Biggs, Chairman of the association, and a selection of association members including LEMO, Harwin and Binder, explained the reasons behind the rebrand what ITSA can offer to its members as the voice of the industry.
ITSA has a presence on several standards bodies where the aim is to influence both current and future changes to standards affecting the interconnection sector. These include the appropriate BSI standards committees as well as RoHS compliance and exemption groups like the Oko Institute and the RoHS umbrella group.
Market conditions and dynamics are extremely important to companies and will affect their choice of markets served as well as how they go to those markets. The sharing of non-confidential data is an important part of ITSA’s mission and members consider this to be a very useful status check on their own experience.
The association’s quarterly statistics and commentary provide members with accurate and prompt quarterly summaries on the status of the UK connector market. This allows members to compare their performance to that of their peer group.
The statistics are also used to help assess the market annually. Members can use these assessments to review their own market development and strategy. Many members use ITSA’s accurate numbers to assess the quality of commercially available and expensive market reports.
The voice of the UK’s interconnect market
The latest podcast from Electronic Specifier Insights looks at the rebranding of the Interconnect Technology Suppliers Association (ITSA).
ITSA exists to provide a favourable operating environment for the benefit of interconnect technology companies and to provide a dynamic network for exploring and co-operating on mutually beneficial opportunities. Key to this success is the collation of key technology and market statistical data.
At a gathering in London, John Biggs, Chairman of the association, and a selection of association members including LEMO, Harwin and Binder, explained the reasons behind the rebrand what ITSA can offer to its members as the voice of the industry.
ITSA has a presence on several standards bodies where the aim is to influence both current and future changes to standards affecting the interconnection sector. These include the appropriate BSI standards committees as well as RoHS compliance and exemption groups like the Oko Institute and the RoHS umbrella group.
Market conditions and dynamics are extremely important to companies and will affect their choice of markets served as well as how they go to those markets. The sharing of non-confidential data is an important part of ITSA’s mission and members consider this to be a very useful status check on their own experience.
The association’s quarterly statistics and commentary provide members with accurate and prompt quarterly summaries on the status of the UK connector market. This allows members to compare their performance to that of their peer group.
The statistics are also used to help assess the market annually. Members can use these assessments to review their own market development and strategy. Many members use ITSA’s accurate numbers to assess the quality of commercially available and expensive market reports.
Listen to the full podcast below.
For many organisations, even those within the connector arena, ITSA is still a fairly unknown quantity. Despite being in existence since 2008 in a variety of forms, Biggs stated that it still seems to be one of the industry’s best kept secrets.
The reason for this seems partly down to the fact that for many companies in the connector space, it’s a case of ‘been there, done that’. Many of ITSA’s current membership base had previously been part of old forums like the IBF (Interconnect Business Form), and the Connector Manufacturers Association (CMA), etc.
While that seemed to tick most industry boxes for a while, in the early noughties, many members of Intellect, the previous association dedicated to the industry, began to drift away due to a perceived lack of membership value, high cost, and lack of direction. The consequences of this was that the association drifted into obscurity.
Biggs added that at that point there were several individuals at Intellect who got together and discussed whether there was any mileage in taking the membership that used to exist and trying to create something new
Therefore, in 2008 the British Connector Manufacturers Association (BCMA) was formed, with six initial members coming over from the former Intellect association. The initial plan was to have a rolling chairman from each of the member companies. However, Biggs explained that while that sounded great on paper, it didn’t really work in practice because everyone was working a day job, had other priorities, and so their focus was not on the association. At the time Biggs was still involved with the association despite having retired from his role with Huber+Suhner, so he was approached to take over as the association’s first external chairman.
While at this time the association was still growing, it wasn’t at the pace that Biggs wanted. And therefore, at a membership meeting the idea was hit upon that being called the BCMA was actually slightly misleading as it gave potential members the impression that you had to be A: be British and B: had to be a manufacturer – neither of which was the case.
Relaunch
Off the back of Biggs’ appointment as external chairman, the association relaunched in 2017 as ITSA (the Interconnect Technologies Suppliers Association) with the aim of not only encouraging new members, but to be more involved in the things that actually impact on the industry such as standards committees, RoHS compliance and exemptions etc.
Commenting on ITSA, Andrew McQuilkan, Sales and Marketing Director, Harwin, explained that while he was aware of the historical associations that had represented the industry in a variety of forms over the years, of which Harwin had been previous members, ITSA was an entity that was not on his or Harwin’s radar until very recently.
Adding that he wasn’t aware of ITSA until around 18 months ago. However, after meeting with the association, it was clear that they are a true voice for the industry, not least because they are addressing some of the problems that exist for the members – problems that Harwin perhaps can’t solve on its own, but the association can.
So, since 2015 the association has seen steady growth in its membership and now have 15 full members. This was then followed by the creation of an associate membership category for people who wanted to be, or were, suppliers into the full membership base from a product or service point of view, or who simply wanted to be linked with the association because of the benefits to their own organisation.
Legislation
Biggs explained that the association has started to gain significant traction over the last few years and has become a key influencer in the industry, highlighted by the fact it has recently been registered as a stakeholder in the Oko Institute, an organisation involved in all things covered by the RoHS (The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC) group. Off the back of this ITSA became part of an umbrella project which consists of 65 association members which purely focuses on RoHS exemptions submitted to the EU on behalf of its membership.
ITSA has passed the information gleaned from the work with this umbrella project onto its members who, in turn, have been able to share it with their parent companies.
2020 and beyond
Looking to the future Biggs added that ITSA obviously has the goal of increasing membership in order to help the association to grow and develop. However, he stressed that this should not be done purely off the back of companies becoming members in order to access its data.
He added that this is clearly difficult to control, but it’s something that the association has experienced before in its previous guises, but Biggs added that ITSA really want members who are interested in supporting the association and to help have more influence over what happens in the interconnect market in the UK - this includes lobbying the relevant government departments when it comes to things like specifications etc.
The current ITSA membership represents around 22-24% of the UK connector market, however, Biggs has set a target of increasing that to around 30% by the end of 2020. There are several technology companies who Biggs stated that he’d like to encourage into the group. Adding that ITSA has a strong technology base across the current members, but are a falling short in a few areas, for example, military circular connectors.
Biggs concluded that ultimately ITSA want to become the recognised voice for the connector industry in the UK. And that the activities ITSA are involved in, the influence it has, the areas which it is stepping into, and the data that it produces reflect very strongly what the connector industry in the UK is all about.”
Members
Thank you for listening to today’s podcast, please join us for our next instalment but in the meantime stay safe. Good bye and thanks again.