A recent conversation raised a blunt critique:
“Manufacturer’s Representatives ‘get in the middle’ and ‘slow things down’ when customers want to move fast. “
However, that framing overlooks how a great representative compresses time by orchestrating answers, aligning stakeholders early, and translating requirements into executable plans that keep production moving.
Reframed correctly,
“The independent great manufacturer’s rep is not a bottleneck; the rep is the glue and the engine of acceleration in complex B2B buying where speed, certainty, and design-for-manufacturabilty matter most.”
What great manufacturers' reps actually do
A skilled rep advocates for the customer’s outcomes while aligning factory capabilities, delivering immediate ROI through:
- Supply-chain resilience
- Downtime prevention
- Cost/performance optimization.
- They reduce risk and cycle time across the deal, not just at the PO stage.
To support the point, Kellogg’s Robert Bray notes on the “ditch the middleman” question:
“We set out looking for disintermediation. We wanted to find it. But we just couldn’t.”
This happens because intermediaries (representatives) that orchestrate value reduce friction in multi-party systems, exactly what top representatives do in complex manufacturing cycles.
In practice, this means proactively pulling critical information from factories, gathering answers, and eliminating ambiguity, so buyers can commit with confidence rather than chasing fragmented signals from multiple sources.
The “middleman” who accelerated
When a buyer tried to skip the usual steps to make a quick decision, they ended up getting slow and confusing answers from different people. The manufacturer’s representative stepped in and quickly compiled all the necessary information about specifications, pricing, and schedules from various partners.
This demonstrates why buyers prefer working within trusted networks; they're willing to pay a little more for greater speed and certainty, rather than trying to do everything on their own.
Orchestration beats disintermediation
In complex B2B, indirect routes remain the norm, not the exception, because coordination among partners reduces uncertainty and time‑to‑answer for the buyer.
“Nearly 70% of over 10,000 B2B buyers purchased via an indirect route or channel partner,” underscoring that buyers choose ecosystems when the stakes and complexity rise.
Kellogg’s finding that researchers “couldn’t” locate broad evidence of successful disintermediation in such contexts reinforces that the right intermediary is a value creator, not dead weight.
Example: Glue between the CRM and the shop floor
- A rep embedded pipeline hygiene and quote‑status visibility with a manufacturer’s inside team, cutting response lag and exception churn; by making information visible end‑to‑end rather than buried in email, the process accelerated without adding bodies, an example of orchestration over disintermediation.
Practical mechanisms of speed
On the ground, speed comes from coverage, relationships, and manufacturing fluency that prevent costly missteps and rework.
“A well‑seasoned manufacturer’s rep offers deeper geographic coverage, established relationships, and value‑added cost savings that guide engineers to economical designs,”
This is how real solutions move faster with fewer escalations.
When factories are difficult to work with, customers and manufacturers often shift to manufacturer's representative partners who reduce resistance. The representative’s job is to make doing business easier and faster for all parties.
Example: Design‑for‑manufacture saved the deal
- Under deadline pressure, a manufacturer’s representative guided a stack-up and tolerance change that reduced costs and de-risked the build sufficiently to avoid a line-down event, precisely the downtime prevention and economical design choices that top practitioners emphasize.
Buyer success with reps and the authorized channel
Authorized-channel analyses highlight buyer-side benefits, such as measurable savings, lower counterfeit risk, and faster exception handling, when buyers source via manufacturers' representatives and authorized distributors rather than through fragmented direct paths.
On the ground, speed comes from connecting, building strong relationships, and understanding the intricacies of manufacturing, allowing you to avoid mistakes and eliminate the need for redoing work. A seasoned manufacturer’s representative brings better coverage, strong connections, and clever ways to save money, helping engineers develop designs that don’t break the bank.
That’s how deals move quickly and with fewer headaches.
Quantification work linked to a Texas A&M methodology estimates customer savings on the order of roughly 16–26% of purchase volume when buyers fully leverage authorized services (inventory, logistics, aggregation, admin), converting internal overhead into channel‑delivered capabilities coordinated by reps.
Examples:
- Early spec alignment avoids churn: A design team working through a rep gained access to synergistic component lines at concept stage, preventing late substitutions and keeping validation on schedule—upstream rep engagement that buyers feel as fewer redesign cycles.
- One throat to choke in a ramp: A buyer used an authorized distributor plus the manufacturer’s rep to coordinate allocation, alternates, and DFM guidance; the rep’s market proximity surfaced demand signals and secured capacity before a spike, reducing line‑down risk and expediting PO approvals.
- Cost‑to‑serve offloaded: A procurement team modeled logistics and admin savings from a rep‑coordinated authorized bundle; realized savings aligned with the 16–26% range, freeing budget for tooling and test while improving issue‑resolution speed.
Case study: OEM buyer accelerates NPI with rep‑led design path
- Situation: A North American OEM navigating a complex, multi‑stakeholder path from concept to demo‑ready device needed suppliers to educate on DFM and coordinate decisions across engineering, operations, and leadership.
- Action: The OEM engaged an ecosystem of partners and relied on manufacturer’s reps to broker early engineering access, reduce ambiguity, and synchronize inputs as the committee evolved, mirroring a long, non‑linear buyer’s journey with many triggers to action.
- Results: In roughly two years, the device was ready to demo for pharma partners. The reps and suppliers who coached the team on DFM from the start were first in line when the buyer was finally ready to purchase, which shortened the buyer’s critical path.
- Why it matters: Buyers get to “yes” sooner when reps bring the right stakeholders together early and nail down the design details; careful coordination, rather than selling harder, cuts the time it takes to choose components.
Case study: EMS buyer reduces total cost via rep + authorized channel
- Situation: An EMS buyer facing volatile demand, expedites, and counterfeit risk across commodity and specialty components sought stability without inflating internal overhead.
- Action: The team formalized an authorized‑channel program and designated the manufacturer’s rep as the single coordination point for alternates, PCN/EOL visibility, and stocking strategies across broadline and high‑service distributors, tuning mix by volume and variability using the study’s framework.
- Results: The results matched the ECIA/Texas A&M framework. By consolidating buys, boosting fill rates, and trimming admin steps, buyers lowered their true cost‑to‑serve by double digits. They also got quicker help on exceptions and ran into fewer quality issues.
- Why it matters: For buyers, a representative plus the authorized channel serves as an operating system for faster, safer sourcing, not an extra layer.
The MaRCTech2 stance
At MaRCTech2, the focus is advocacy plus orchestration:
- Pulling critical information from factories
- Guiding design decisions that de‑risk builds
- And making workflows transparent so customers get reliable answers quickly and confidently.
The question isn’t whether the rep is “in the middle,”
.... But whether the rep is in the critical path of acceleration.
When the answer is ‘yes,’ velocity improves, risk drops, and customers reach certainty faster with fewer compromises.
A concise takeaway for skeptics
- Ecosystems win:
Most complex B2B purchases flow through partners because orchestration reduces uncertainty and speeds decisions.
- Early > late:
Time with specifiers correlates with higher growth and shorter cycles; upstream alignment prevents downstream delays.
- Leadership leverage:
Rep‑centric models with C‑suite engagement grow faster and execute strategy better in the field.
- Modern rep value:
Updated industry research confirms that digitally enabled representatives provide measurable value in terms of speed, risk reduction, and design outcomes.
Your next action
If speed is the mandate, the path isn’t to remove the manufacturer's representative; it’s to empower the right representative to operate upstream, orchestrate information flow, and reduce time-to-answer.
All while protecting cost, quality, and schedule.
What matters most in your manufacturer’s rep:
…how will you measure it, so it translates to fewer cycles and faster time‑to‑revenue in your world?