Quote:
Originally Posted by
bwebmasta 
Welcome to what can and does happen when you outsource...
There is an article in CIO magazine that goes in depth about many tech leaders are bringing several things back in house. Some of the reasons are obvious.
To be fair, almost all hardware is outsourced to some degree. Nobody makes everything. And even the stuff assembled in-house is bought with components from elsewhere.
To be fully integrated you'd need to own the business that mines the material from the earth, the business the refines it, the business that packages and ships it, the business that combines those materials to make other materials - all the way to the business that sells the final product to you on the street corner. Nobody's that vertically integrated anymore.
So the question, from a production standpoint, becomes - how do you do quality control with your vendors? How do you certify a factory or vendor to sell you components?
On the big list of manufacturers, we are one of the most picky. Ask any of our vendors for power supplies, cases, coolers - we've heard questions like "Why do you want the capacitor changed? It's not over spec, and changing it will cost 3 cents more!" and things. The stock mentality of many manufacturers is "cheaper is better".
So one of our big assets, (ironically, for this thread), is actually our quality control. I know it might not seem like it, but we have a very thorough quality control department. They're working on fixes all the time - and we've been hiring new people basically every quarter to keep up with demand.
The important things to remember when you see Corsair complaint threads on forums:
1. We sell a ton of parts - we're the #1 guy in liquid coolers for sure, #1 in PSUs in many regions, we're growing cases, audio products, SSDs, etc. Everything is selling in huge volumes and growing every year.
2. Our customers are very likely to be technical. People who build their own PCs and have forums accounts are generally technical people to some degree. They are very good at picking out flaws.
3. Our products are premium quality and thus have higher expectations, justifiably. Pay $20 for an aircooler and the fan vibrates? Throw it away and get another $3 fan for it. Pay $80 for a liquid cooler and the fan vibrates? I'd be more upset for sure.
4. We respond - and we have forums guys reading these threads and commenting. So now a lot of people post their complaint threads hoping we'll see them and post in them - and it works. It works very well, because the standard customer service response has cracks and crevices and sometimes people fall through them. This is a way to fill in some of the cracks.
So when you talk about outsourcing, of course there's a risk, but the companies that own factories are not the same companies that know which features go on which product and where the products should be priced and sold.
Our strength as a brand is directly based on your feedback. We try and build parts that you want to buy. My end goal is to ask you guys what you want, then find the right guy to make it, and then sell it to you at a fair price. If we do this right, you get the product you want at the price you want, I get to make a little bit of money on the deal, and a factory somewhere gets to keep busy.
I get paid to define specifications for power supplies, cases, and coolers. Talking to you guys helps me do that job. I'm not in customer service, I'm the product manager. So when you guys say "It should be a thicker radiator and cost $5 less" then I get to look into whether that's viable and how to do it.
And this thread is helping me fix one of my products that has a problem for some people, so it's very useful. I guarantee you the factory making these things would have never stumbled upon this thread.
