Where manufacturing businesses lose leads and follow-ups
Manufacturing sales cycles are long and document-heavy. An RFQ arrives with drawings, moves through costing, sampling and approval rounds, and can sit with a buyer for weeks. Meanwhile the same sales team is chasing dealers for secondary sales, sharing scheme letters and trying to keep AMC and rate-contract renewals from lapsing. When all of that lives in spreadsheets and personal WhatsApp chats, quotes get buried and the plant never hears about the follow-up that decided the order.
The pattern most factories recognise: the first quote goes out fast, but the second and third follow-ups never happen. Buyers rarely say no — they go quiet. Without a system that shows every open RFQ, its age and its next step, quiet deals stay quiet until a competitor picks them up.