“If the customers catch a cold, the manufacturers catch pneumonia”

A business relies on the financial health of its customers. “If the customers (especially large customers) catch a cold, the manufacturers catch pneumonia” is a business adage. “Another hazard of the custom business, he adds, is that when ‘a customer catches a cold, we catch pneumonia’” was cited in print in 1974. “Says analyst Wolfgang Demisch, of UBS Securities Inc.: ‘If the customers catch a cold, the manufacturers catch pneumonia’” was cited in 1990.
   
 
Google Books
Electronics
Volume 47
1974
Pg. 16:
And Marren’s anticipating trends. Another hazard of the custom business, he adds, is that when “a customer catches a cold, we catch pneumonia.”
 
Google Books
BusinessWeek
Issues 3180-3185
1990
Pg. 42:
Says analyst Wolfgang Demisch, of UBS Securities Inc.: “If the customers catch a cold, the manufacturers catch pneumonia.”
   
The Motley Fool—Boards
Author: sloPeter
Subject: Why the Silence?
Date: 8/21/2000 11:57 PM
(...)
So why the sixty percent drop in stock price? Disappointment of the professional analysts! But a company that sells caital goods, and that’s what EFII’s printing technology is, will always exaggerate the business cycle. When its customers catch a cold, it catches pneumonia. So…, the slowdown shouldn’t have been a surprise.
   
Silicon Investor
6/13/2002 9:12:32 PM
To: Jack of All Trades who wrote (78657)
From: Zeev Hed
I think that the group is of the type that when their customers catch a cold, they catch a deadly pneumonia. Razor thin margins and very large overhead, feast and famine kind of existence.
 
Google Books
The Flexible Thinker Guide to Extreme Career Performance
By Sandra Boyd and Michael Rosenberg
Brampton, Ont.: Orange You Glad Inc.
2005
Pg. 27:
How many organizations do you know that have only one client? What company is not always trying to secure new customers, even from their competitors? The answer of course is that a company that has only one client would be bankrupt very soon. It is the old adage that if their customer catches a cold, they would catch pneumonia.
   
Insider Media Limited (UK)
08 APR 2010
THE LIFEBLOOD OF BUSINESS?
(...)
“Very small businesses are very fragile; if their biggest customer gets a cold they get pneumonia.”
   
Orlando (FL) Business Journal
Orlando’s community banks set aside $101.4M to cover potential lending losses in 2012
By Bill Orben
Mar 30, 2012, 6:00am EDT
(...)
Independent Bankers Bank of Florida reported loan losses of $45.6 million during the past five years. To its credit, the bank cut its loan losses in half from 2009 to 2010 — from $19 million to $10 million and again in 2011. James H. McKillop III, president and CEO of the bank whose customers are other community banks in Florida and south Georgia, set aside $18 million in 2008 and $23 million in 2009 to cover potential loan losses. The bank has been working with other banks to get updated financial information so it is not surprised by other loans. “When my customers catch a cold, I catch pneumonia,” he said.
 
Economic Times (India)
Oil drillers under pressure to scrap rigs to cope with downturn
By Bloomberg | 25 Dec, 2014, 11.16AM IST
(...)
“There is an old saying: If our customers get a cold, we get pneumonia,” John Rynd, chief executive officer of Houston-based Hercules, told investors this month.“We’re getting pneumonia right now.”