Profile I David Zelkha
In business for the right reasons
Neil Tyler talks to David Zelkha, the Managing Director of Luso Electronic Products, about the launch of a new distribution division and his plans for the future
H
eadquartered in the City of London, but with facilities in Leicester and Birmingham, Luso Electronic
Products is an independent and privately owned company. It was established by the current managing director David Zelkha’s father in 1956 and became Luso Electronics in 1967. Originally a supplier of television components the company now manufactures and installs microwave communications systems and its Power Transmission Division opened in 1997. In May 2011 the company set up a new electronic distribution division that looks to offer technical and commercial support to manufacturers from the power transmission components and electronic power supplies sector and among its growing list of franchises are SynQor, N2 Power and Veetronix. Zelkha joined his father’s electronics business back in 1972. In 1987, with Tony Frere and Geoff Rose, he helped to set up the semiconductor distributor, DT Electronics which after almost 20 years of successful trading was then sold to Nu Horizons.
I started the interview by asking him how Luso Electronics had performed of late and what impact the decision to establish a new distribution division had had on the way the business was running. “I’m pleased with the way things have gone. The company has grown every year over the last 10-15 years and at the end of our last financial year – which ended in December 2011 – we saw turnover top £11m. That was an increase of over 8 per cent on the previous year,” says Zelkha. “We’re based on three divisions: distribution, microwave and power, and across all three we saw consistent growth last year. For our microwave division the satellite market is important and that remains relatively strong, but while I expect to see growth continue into 2012, it will be a challenge to maintain current rates.
“The core business remains fairly static.
The growth is coming from our distribution arm, which saw a turnover of £450,000 last year and that is expected to top £2m in 2012. That is significantly
14 March 2012
ahead of our original forecasts. The microwave division requires further investment and until that is carried out I expect to see annual growth of around 2- 3 per cent.”
What was the decision behind launching Luso Electronics Distribution? “That decision was made because I wanted to add another dimension to the company and it provides another key driver of growth for the business. We decided to set up the division in part because of my experience with DT Electronics but also because it would provide Luso with a more solid base. It’s relatively small, in terms of the business as a whole, but as the figures show we are seeing significant growth.” In fact Luso has just signed a new exclusive distribution agreement with Andon Electronics, a manufacturer of IC sockets and interconnects for the telecommunications, medical, military and aerospace markets. It’s the company’s fifth distribution agreement since it was set up last year.
As Zelkha explains “We only intend to work with a limited number of complementary franchises for which we will provide technical and commercial support; the aim is to offer a level of support that will help customers better penetrate key industrial markets both in the UK and Ireland.”
Origins Originally from Iraq, Zelkha’s father came to the UK after the Second World War as he was making his way to the US. With its origins in the 1950s Luso Trading as it was originally called was and remains very much a family business. The company grew and established a strong trading relationship with Thomson in France sourcing components for the burgeoning market for televisions. Zelkha joined his father in 1972 and his son has just followed that family tradition having entered the business himself. “We’ve seen good growth in the last few years. We grew more than we’d ever done during 2007-8 and I put that down
Components in Electronics
to the relationships we have established with our customers. I also think we started to get our act together more in 2007 and the strong growth we’ve seen really reflects that. “It’s always easy to start something, to come up with an idea but from my experience it takes time to develop something successfully. In our core microwave division, for example, quality is vital. When we set that business up, it took time to find the right team and to get the engineering talent in place.”
Luso’s microwave
division is headed by a very talented engineer, according to Zelkha. “He compliments our commercial skills with vast and detailed technical knowledge. He’s out meeting engineers all the time and that contact with customers is crucial.”
Zelkha is a great believer in the need to
be proactive when it comes to dealing with customers. “It’s the most important part of being in
www.cieonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48