Consulting & Tools
Consulting Services
Of all the hours worked at CBA the majority are focused on custom consulting projects for our OEM and EMS clients, including…
- Global Outsourcing Optimization (GO2) (TM)
In CBA’s GO2 methodology an OEM’s Global Outsourcing solution is analyzed against Industry Standards.
- Like-Kind/Scale-Equivalent Analysis
In many cases, our clients are interested in discovering how their peer group handles operational, organizational and/or financial issues and what the best-in-class metrics/practices actually are!
- Business Assessment/Due Diligence
With decades of experience and deep insights from dozens of industry case studies, CBA can quickly and accurately assess a manufacturing company’s management acumen, operational performance, and future potential.
- Manufacturing Supply Solution
Be it insourcing (SSI), outsourcing (SSO) or some combination (Mixed Model) CBA is the undisputed thought leader on this subject and has crafted not only state-of-the-art tools but also the definitive database on this subject.

(Note: Call for additional detail, pricing and available dates.)
OEM VP/GM… ”CBA does what they say they’ll do, on time and on budget. Refreshing!”
Tools (Outsourcing Navigator Series, ONS)
It is CBA’s belief that over the preceding decade we have collected more data on the electronics manufacturing business than ANY other consultancy in the world (our case files, data-records and research findings are measured in terabytes vs. gigabytes!)
At the very center of this effort lives, what we call the “Outsourcing Navigator Series” which is a composite of CBA’s
- Case-based data-set (updated quarterly), and
- The algorithms of its ‘True Cost of Outsourcing’ model.
In this model there are three core elements:
- The price paid to the EMS for services provided,
- The cost incurred internally by the OEM in support of their outsourcing initiative, and
- The risk associated with the geography in which the manufacturing facility is located.
To facilitate these calculations CBA has developed an easily applied methodology for estimating each of these core elements…
GLOBAL PRICING METHODOLOGY (GPM)
The GPM is based on the fact that in any ‘for profit’ commercial enterprise selling price is simply the aggregate of the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) uplifted by a mark-up and the application of Corporate Costs (CC). Which means, with minimal training and the information supplied in CBA’s global data-set (that’s updated quarterly) anyone can estimate and/or analyze the price of outsourcing services in over 35 geographies around the world.

OEM INTERNAL SPEND (OIS)
During the past decade, OEMs lacked the tools necessary to estimate how much they were actually spending INTERNALLY in support of their outsourcing initiative and thereby were grossly overestimating the ‘savings’ they were achieving by embracing cross-hemispheric outsourcing solutions. To address this situation CBA derived the OIS module from actual cases-based data, collected from both large and small OEMs (worldwide), so that OEMs can accurately model and thereby monetize their selected approach.
GEOGRAPHIC RISK MODULE (GRM)
Looking beyond external price and internal spend; an OEM needs to consider 4 critical risk elements when designing or selecting a cost effective Outsourcing solution; Geographic Options, Alignment of Internal Expectations, Assessment of Internal Resources, Capabilities of the Supply Solution. Simply put, to implement a cost effective and risk appropriate Outsourcing solution there needs to be an alignment between the Expectations & Internal Resources of the OEM and the Capabilities of the Supply Solution when factored for the Geography selected.
(Note: The ONS tools, data-set and quarterly XL Workbook are available ONLY via membership in the Outsourcing Navigator Council.)