Innovation at Risk
In the electronics and high-tech industry, the pressure to innovate is constant. Companies race to introduce the next groundbreaking product, meet evolving consumer demands, and secure a competitive edge. This relentless pace, however, creates a significant challenge: how to accelerate innovation without sacrificing product quality.
Striking this balance is not just a strategic advantage; it is essential for survival and long-term success.
The Risk of
Slow Innovation
When innovation slows, a company risks:
Explore the Infographic
The Risk of Poor Quality
On the other hand, rushing a product to market at the expense of quality can be equally damaging. A single high-profile failure can undo years of brand-building. The risks associated with poor quality include:
Qualityrelated production delays affected 27% of E&HT producers in 2025.
37% of US adults are unlikely to buy from the same electronics brand after a recall.
resulting in 4,500 defective units.
Rework Cost
Understand the hidden costs of poor quality.
Read the blog.
Supplier quality plays an important role in the overall quality of the final product. While 70% of respondents believe they have control over their suppliers, 52% attributed up to half of their product recalls to supplier issues.
Quality products are non-negotiable, but there are bottlenecks preventing companies from addressing quality at speed.
Solving
The Price of Speed and Quality Tradeoffs
To solve a dilemma, we often must find a third way—an option that gets you to the best of both worlds. We’ve guided hundreds of companies to a solution and identified the must-have capabilities necessary to make both speed and quality priorities throughout the product lifecycle.
Read the E-book
To be successful executing at speed with the rigor required for quality products,
What’s at the heart of quality challenges?
Product Recalls and Rework: The direct financial cost of recalls, repairs, and scrap can be enormous, severely impacting profitability.
Loss of Customer Loyalty: Customers have numerous choices. A negative experience with a faulty product makes them likely to switch to a competitor for their next purchase.
Revenue Loss: Poor quality isn’t just bad for customers and the brand; it has an immediate impact on the bottom line—one that’s compounded by high-volume components.
Variability in chip supply and testing capacity created 15-20% higher failure discovery rates in latestage QA.
73% of organizations have faced a product recall in the last five years
72% of global consumers cite product reliability and defectfree performance as their #1 purchase driver in consumer tech.
1.5% of the boards have misplaced components,
Due to a calibration issue in their pick-and-place machine,
300,000 PCBs per month for consumer electronics
Material Cost
The total cost of this error is
Reworking each board takes 15 minutes at a labor rate of $30 per hour. That’s $7.50 per board, or
Scrap Cost
Of the defective boards, 10% (450 units) are irreparable and must be scrapped. At $17.50 per board (including materials and initial assembly), that’s
Supplier Collaboration: E&HT companies require thousands of suppliers to meet the high-volume demand for their products. Ensuring these suppliers meet quality standards is both challenging and critical.
More than 1 million Anker power banks were recalled after reports of fires and explosions linked to a battery defect. The quality issue was linked to an issue with lithium-ion battery cells supplied by a single vendor.
Siloed Systems and Poor Collaboration
Manual, Labor-Intensive Processes
Lack of Early-Stage Quality Planning
Underutilized Data and Metrics
Siloed Systems and Poor Collaboration
Disconnected tools across engineering, quality, and manufacturing lead to miscommunication and delays. A lack of shared visibility into product data hinders root cause analysis and change management.
Underutilized Data and Metrics
Siloed Systems and Poor Collaboration
Limited Traceability and Change Control
Inadequate traceability across the product lifecycle makes it difficult to assess the impact of changes or track quality issues back to their source, leading to late-stage rework and compliance risks.
Lack of Early-Stage Quality Planning
Underutilized Data and Metrics
Siloed Systems and Poor Collaboration
Manual, Labor-Intensive Processes
Lack of Early-Stage Quality Planning
Quality is often treated as a post-design checkpoint rather than being embedded from the start. This reactive approach increases the cost of poor quality and delays time-to-market.
Underutilized Data and Metrics
Siloed Systems and Poor Collaboration
Manual, Labor-Intensive Processes
Lack of Early-Stage Quality Planning
Underutilized Data and Metrics
Many teams lack access to real-time quality metrics or fail to act on them. Without actionable insights, continuous improvement efforts stall.
45% of product launches are delayed by at least one month.
$269 billion in missed annual revenue growth for high-tech
Consumers associate high-tech brands with progress. A failure to innovate...
Dive deeper into the challenge of accelerating innovation.
Using a PLM solution for enterprise-wide quality governance, Bose was able to accelerate NPI and quality validation.
Bose
With a PLM solution, HPE created a single source of truth across product design, manufacturing, supply chain and quality, making change management and part reuse more effective.
Currently years into a PLM transformation, this German semiconductor leader understands the importance of product data accessibility to drive efficiency, quality, and innovation.
Losing to Competitors:
Missing Market Windows:
Decreased Brand Relevance:
Total Direct Cost
The Risk of Poor Quality
Product Recalls and Rework:
Loss of Customer Loyalty:
Revenue Loss:
Quality related production delays affected 27% of E&HT producers in 2025.
Product Recalls and Rework:
Loss of Customer Loyalty:
Revenue Loss:
On the other hand, rushing a product to market at the expense of quality can be equally damaging. A single high-profile failure can undo years of brand-building.
The direct financial cost of recalls, repairs, and scrap can be enormous, severely impacting profitability.
Product Recalls and Rework:
Variability in chip supply and testing capacity created 15-20% higher failure discovery rates in latestage QA.
73% of organizations have faced a product recall in the last five years
The Innovation-Quality Dilemma
Missing a key market window can mean the difference between leading a category and becoming irrelevant. Competitors are always ready to capture market share with newer, more advanced products.
See how leading E&HT companies have addressed quality—and created real business impact:
Read the blog
Understand the hidden costs of poor quality.
you need to rethink how products are developed and brought to market. To strike a balance between speed and quality, transformation is necessary.
To complement your product innovations, your systems and processes need to keep up. Disconnected systems, manual processes, limited traceability and reactive quality assessments create risks for quality issues to be missed or caught too late.
With so much at stake, it’s time to examine how your products are developed and brought to market. By addressing the bottlenecks and allowing information and materials to securely flow to the groups that need them, you’ll nurture a more transparent, rigorous, and proactive approach to quality management.
Back to Top
are delayed by at least one month. Enough time for the market to shift, or a competitor to get there first.
of product launches
45%
in missed annual revenue growth for high-tech industry due to supply chain disruptions.
$269
billion
like Kodak and Sony Walkman, and lost market share to newer, faster competitors.
failed to innovate,
Think of industry giants who
Supplier quality plays an important role in the overall quality of the final product. While 70% of respondents believe they have control over their suppliers, 52% attributed up to half of their product recalls to supplier issues.
More than 1 million Anker power banks were recalled after reports of fires and explosions linked to a battery defect. The quality issue was linked to an issue with lithium-ion battery cells supplied by a single vendor.
E&HT companies require thousands of suppliers to meet the high-volume demand for their products. Ensuring these suppliers meet quality standards is both challenging and critical.
Supplier Collaboration:
Supplier Collaboration:
Supplier Collaboration:
72% of global consumers cite product reliability and defect free performance as their #1 purchase driver in consumer tech.
Customers have numerous choices. A negative experience with a faulty product makes them likely to switch to a competitor for their next purchase.
Loss of Customer Loyalty:
37% of US adults are unlikely to buy from the same electronics brand after a recall.
Poor quality isn’t just bad for customers and the brand; it has an immediate impact on the bottom line—one that’s compounded by high-volume components.
Revenue Loss:
The risks associated with poor quality include:
Watch the Webcast
Read the Case Study
Watch the Video
-$33,750
-$7,875
-$86,625
-$45,000
Lack of Early-Stage Quality Planning
Manual, Labor-Intensive Processes
$45,000 in wasted materials.
Each board uses components worth $10 on average. At 4,500 defective units, that’s
$33,750 for 4,500 boards.
$7,875 in scrap losses.
$86,625 for a single month.