By Ben Rand
$1.5 BILLION FOR INSYTE. I am proud to announce that Insyte has surpassed $1.5 billion in client-reported impact in WNY for the period from 2000 to 2014, according to independent, third-party surveys of Insyte’s clients, conducted on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
At a time when many national, statewide and local manufacturing measures—the ISM Index, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, the Buffalo PMI—are up, this is one more indication that manufacturing in WNY is very healthy indeed.
What does “client impact” mean? Simply put, it is the quantifiable benefit of the project work that WNY manufacturers have done with Insyte. These figures are particularly meaningful because they are not our own guesstimates, but come from our clients through these independent surveys. Here is the breakdown of impacts, by type, from 2000-2014 as reported by our clients:
Why should you care about any of this? First and foremost, it indicates that WNY manufacturers are committed to getting better. By undertaking improvement projects, they are investing in themselves, whether it is to grow their sales through new products and new markets, or to enhance their operational efficiency through Lean and Six Sigma. A strong manufacturing sector is good news for anyone who lives in WNY since manufacturing is the top contributor to GDP in Buffalo Niagara at over $7 billion, and manufacturing accounts for more than one of every 10 jobs in our region. We are particularly proud that our client projects have saved or created almost 9,000 manufacturing jobs, a significant portion of the approximately 65,000 manufacturing jobs in the five counties as of August 2014, according to NYS Department of Labor figures.
Many of us work hard for years with only a vague sense of the impact we are having on our clients and our communities. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s impact surveys, we get a precise estimate every quarter of how Insyte is doing in dollars and cents. Quarter after quarter, year after year, decade after decade, those numbers begin to add up, even for a little organization like ours (albeit the largest management consultancy in WNY). So we will keep doing what we have been doing, working one project, one company at a time to add value, to make a difference and to strengthen both WNY manufacturing and WNY as a whole.
