ODM is an important definition to learn when involving yourself in the manufacturing industry , as it is something that is not only incredibly prevalent but makes up a huge section of the manufacturing business.
It involves two entities, one is a factory and the other is the importer.
The ODM factory would already have a set design that they are making or a series of set designs.
The importer then chooses a design already being made and makes some changes to it to make it fit twitch their company image.
Those changes might be as simple as getting the factory to add a label or a brand related to the importer’s company or they might be aesthetic changes such as the color scheme of the product or the packaging.
The point is that the changes made are to make the once neutral product, more in tune with the company image.
Now, this might seem like a semi-alien idea but this way of selling products happens all the time in many different industries actually, although it would have different names.
For example, a novelist may give up a newly written book to a publishing agency.
Where it becomes branded in their logo and made to look a certain way in line with other novels that are also now connected to the company.
The content of the book itself may also be altered slightly to be in line with certain prerequisites.
This interaction is similar to the one you’d have with an ODM however it is simply called signing due to the context it is in.
This may also happen with makeup brands, some makeup may be invented and then a celebrity might sign on as a model to be associated with the makeup, therefore, putting their brand on a neutral product.
This would increase the sales of the makeup exponentially giving the makeup maker more money than they would have made previously.
Now back to the product and manufacturing industry, this process takes place a surprisingly huge amount of the time.
This concept may seem like a far-fetched idea but believe it or not many products you use would have resulted in ODM somewhere along the line.
For example products such as Dell computers, Sony, Philips, and Nokia all use ODM for low-tier products.
If you have electronic devices in your room there’s a high chance that they were made using ODM.
Many manufacturers that do ODM, do so for a range of different companies.
This means that when looking into what manufacturing company is most reliable, sometimes looking at who they are already doing work for is a good idea.
As it means you can see what work has already been completed by them, whether or not it was good quality and what brands are happy to associate their names with what company.
A lot of companies choose to do ODM so that they don’t have to spend heaps of money on items needed to produce the products and can start selling their products quicker.
They also don’t need to spend as much time creating specific rules around how their product should be made.
The manufacturers that do ODM don’t need to market the products being made or deal with the selling sides of things.
In a way, this agreeability between two parties means that the areas that one doesn’t want to engage with are taken care of by the other.
In much the same way that two children may come to an understanding when one really likes icing but hates cupcakes and the other really likes cupcakes but hates icing might share the entire baked good that they may have had to begrudgingly finish themselves previously.
Therefore in many ways by understanding exactly what Original design manufacturers are you can start to begin to see why it’s used and how far-reaching it is for many companies and countries all around the world.
