Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for David Yodaiken · Cyclops Electronics · United States · August 2026
Cyclops sells component sourcing, excess stock and supply chain services to the companies that build electronic products. This page counts the United States only, because it is the market where the buyer universe is publicly registered and countable. In this market, first contact usually happens after a buyer is already short of a part and searching, which is late and crowded. This map is the market before that point: the segments, who signs inside each one, and roughly how many companies sit there.
Component and semiconductor manufacturers
Buys components to build components, and runs the tightest allocation discipline of any segment here because a shortage stops a line rather than a project.
Who signs: purchasing manager, commodity or strategic buyer, materials manager, director of supply chain.
5,000 to 5,500
US employers registered in semiconductor and electronic component production
Contract manufacturers and board assembly
The segment that buys on behalf of everyone else. A single approved supplier relationship here reaches every program that manufacturer builds, which makes it worth more than its count.
Who signs: procurement lead, materials manager, program manager, and the estimator who prices the bill of materials.
1,600 to 2,000
US employers across circuit board production and electronics assembly
Instruments, test and measurement
Long product lifecycles and small production runs, so the pain is availability of older parts rather than price on current ones. That is a sourcing conversation rather than a distribution one.
Who signs: purchasing manager, engineering manager, operations director, and the sustaining engineer who owns the older platform.
3,000 to 3,500
US employers registered in instrument and measuring device production
Electrical equipment and industrial controls
Rugged, long-life products sold into plants and infrastructure, where a design change is expensive and a like-for-like part is worth paying for.
Who signs: purchasing manager, supply chain director, engineering manager, plant materials lead.
5,000 to 5,800
US employers registered in electrical equipment, appliance and component production
Aerospace, defense and space
The segment where end-of-life parts are a program risk rather than an inconvenience, because requalification carries a cost and a schedule of its own.
Who signs: strategic sourcing manager, program buyer, supplier quality lead, and the engineer who owns obsolescence on the platform.
2,400 to 2,900
US employers registered in aerospace product and parts production
Medical device makers
Adjacent and worth naming separately because the register is different. A component change can force revalidation, so continuity of supply is a regulatory question, not only a commercial one.
Who signs: purchasing manager, supplier quality lead, operations director, and the regulatory owner on any change.
12,500 to 13,500
US device establishments on the federal register; this counts sites rather than companies, so it runs ahead of the employer counts above

Where the openings are

1
Search-led demand arrives after the decision. A buyer looking for a part has already chosen the part, the quantity and the deadline, so the only variable left is price. The five electronics segments above hold 17,000 to 19,700 registered US employers, and the device register adds another 12,500 to 13,500 sites on top. Being known before the shortage is the part that is reachable.
2
The buyer here is a role, not a company. Purchasing manager, commodity buyer, materials manager. Those seats turn over frequently, and a new buyer almost always reworks the approved supplier list in the first months. A channel built on named roles catches that. A channel built on inbound search does not.
3
End of life is a moment, not a cycle. When a component goes end of life, the builder either makes a last-time buy or requalifies, and in regulated segments requalification is the expensive option. Those moments are visible from outside if someone is watching several thousand companies for them, and invisible to anyone waiting for the inquiry to arrive.
4
Excess stock is a different buyer entirely. Sourcing is bought by procurement. Clearing surplus is decided by operations and finance, usually at a quarter or year end, and often by people who have never spoken to a distributor. Same companies, different door, and almost nobody works both.
Built from public United States registry data: an employer register covering companies that file a benefit plan, current to the 2024 filing year, and the federal register of device establishments. Counts are banded deliberately. Owner-only and very small companies are not published in the employer data, sector codes are self-reported, and the device register counts sites rather than companies, so the two sets are shown separately rather than added together. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
ENQUIRER CONSULTING GROUP
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