Some of this information, including manufacturing locations, technical areas of expertise, core competencies, quality achievements, metrology capabilities, key alliances and joint ventures, and things of this nature can be summarized and provided in a profile online. However, generating this information requires cooperation with the suppliers, not only to ensure accuracy and objectivity, but also to allow the suppliers to differentiate themselves. Semiconductor materials are highly engineered products, not commodities, and buying decisions require concise and timely information. In addition, suppliers often times want to better understand their customer base, and therefore similar types of profiles for the semiconductor manufacturers are quite useful. Additional examples of specialized content include semiconductor and material market trend data, market share information, material technology overviews, material pricing trends, lists of industry associations, and lists of industry consultants.
Market places become a repository of important industry content.
Sanitized benchmark pricing trends are another valuable type of transaction-based content. This facilitates channel management and partner relationship management, as well as order management and fulfillment. The availability of real-time supply and demand metrics in the semiconductor materials industry is of extreme value given historical cycles of shortages and gluts. In addition to actual volume metrics, pricing metrics can be used as a measure of supply and demand in the market. Customer procurement behavior and supplier performance metrics also can be generated and distributed discriminately to help strengthen relationships and improve market efficiency.