Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1479191
SEPTEMBER 2022 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 17 Stepinski: I spent some time on a sabbatical before I started my business. I also went to finance school, engineering school, and some business schools, then synthesized everything I'd learned. I identified this big need in the mar- ket and developed my own plan. I developed myself in this way, and it seems to be working. I think it's a good model for others to do the same, because we need more of it. Johnson: Alex, it sounds like you're a consult- ing CTO. You help companies put together a plan, possibly helping their CTO advance their skills. Stepinski: I'm not a CTO of a factory. I help the CXO. But it depends how fast you want to grow. Do you want to constantly invest and reinvest? Okay, then you need these services, and you should have your own CTO too. If you just want something short term, then it's just connecting the dots to identify the right investments to improve the business plan and I can help out. Investments can be equipment and human capital as well. It's contract ser- vices for things like soware. You know you don't want to hire too many people from that "10 to 14 jobs by age 35" group, and you real- ize that in this economy, contractors are the name of the game because it gives folks free- dom to live where they want and do what they want and I have found that the capital invest- ment-to-value efficiency is much higher. Cer- tainly, having your own staff still has value, but many of the tasks nowadays are one-off items and do not justify full-time specialized roles. It also keeps your CTO less administrative and more technical with a smaller staff. To be really successful in 2022, I think you need to embrace this trend. As the CTO, you say, "I don't need too many engineers, that's not going to work for me. I will identify improve- ment projects that pay for themselves, and then find a blend of contractors (not suppliers with conflicts of interest, by the way) and in- house resources to execute those projects." e burden on the CTO is developing those work statements for everything: the equipment, ser vices to be provided, and any job/skill descriptions for associated people. Your worth as a CTO is how well you can cre- ate these work statements for people, services, and equipment. Once you make the state- ments, you get the work insourced/contracted out, and follow up on your investment. Highly skilled people are a scarce resource. Help them get more education so they know how to man- age this stuff. Putting together a program where CTOs get trained to integrate these three func- tions that then allows you to start investing in your business again is a big hurdle, but if you can put the right person in place, you will start to grow and improve ROIC to raise your busi- ness valuation. Matties: Are you focused specifically on bare board fabrication? Stepinski: I'm multi-industry; most of what I do is greenfield. I'm not doing anything in brown- field PCB shops directly right now, but I do per- form worldwide process research and develop IP that is useful to them. I do some direct con- tracts with brownfield in other industries, but I'm a little all over the place right now in both the U.S. and EMEA. I never thought too much about doing the PCB brownfield job shop side directly because it is a hard-headed market in general. Matties: I don't know if that bodes well for a bright future for the bare board shops. Highly skilled people are a scarce resource. Help them get more education so they know how to manage this stuff.