Title
Interview
Interview—Digi-Key’s Mark Larson
Digikey is one of the fastest growing, most dynamic companies in the electronics industry. Trevor Galbraith met Digi-Key’s CEO, Mark Larson at electronica to talk about the strategies that propelled them to the top in such a short time and to gain an insight into their plans for the future. Watch the complete interview below.
What would you say have been the key characteristics of the meteoric growth that Digi-Key has experienced in recent years?
I think there are a couple of drivers that have really played strongly in the last few years. One is the Internet. The growth and acceptance of the Internet by the engineering community have been spectacular. In addition to the Internet, we have seen very strong international expansion, which in recent years has been excellent. A third driver would be our ability
to fulfill the needs of tier 3 and tier 4 manufacturers. This started out as a North
American initiative and it is now being rolled out in Asia and Europe.
How do you audit and qualify your suppliers, and what key criteria do you demand from them?
To start with we only work with world-class suppliers. However, there are occasions where we do have to vet a supplier of a particular product more closely, where they have not exhibited a long track record. Basically, we expect performance from
our suppliers. They should deliver a quality product, on time, and they should stand behind that product.
50 – Global SMT & Packaging – Celebrating 10 Years – December 2010
One key point is that we only purchase
products directly from the manufacturer. Even if our stocks are depleted on that component, we would not use alternative sources. This helps to guarantee quality and performance and protect against issues such as counterfeit. This is fairly unique to Digi-Key.
In a commodity driven market, such as components, how important is it to have the best and easiest to use website and ordering system?
I almost couldn’t overstate it. Bill Gates said people tend to overestimate the
www.globalsmt.net
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