Whether based on stands which could have comfortably staged a football match (Arrow) or more modestly sized establishments demonstrating product applications, the distribution community gathered around familiar themes in Munich.
Extending franchise reach was well up there. Distributors must have been sitting around pre-electronica like the school kid bursting to use the lavatory but afraid to ask. When the show commenced announcements gushed out in what must have been an ecstasy of relief and release.
Av Avant-Memec signing Tundra here, a Premier Farnell sidling up to Samtec, RS Components cosying up to Crydom, Digi-Key tieing the knot with Tyco and Nu-Horizons zeroing in on SiTime. All these deals were either global or pan-European. That is the route of choice for those distributors with pretensions to play on the major stage. Local deals don't cut it with these players.
They just don't want to sit in front of a customer and lose a deal in, say Germany, because they only represent the supplier in the UK.
For example Michael Danylow, president of Avnet Time says he is looking to offer his customer base two major lines of the same product, which drives his strategy to ensure all his agreements are truly pan-European.
"We will have a focused line card, we don't want thousands of lines," he remarked. Danylow is determined the suppliers he works with will be the big cats in their product sectors. To prove the point he indicates the AVX, Tyco, Vishay, Molex, Epcos and Amphenol logos sported on Avnet Time literature.
Comments