2017 - A year of change... for some
Graham Maggs, vice president marketing EMEA, Mouser Electronics, talks about the past year, the year ahead and explains how important it is for
distributors to support the design engineer
W
ow, what a year we had in 2016. Who would have predicted Trump or Brexit? Certainly not the pollsters, nearly all of whom got it very wrong. So writing a
commentary with predictions for 2017 in a publication destined to last a year is almost impossible.
However much we might like to live in our bubble, the elec-
tronics industry will be affected by world events, but never forget the Law of Unforeseen Consequences. Addressing Brexit: the first thing to say is that right now, nothing has happened. Obvi- ously the money markets reacted swiftly and negatively to Brexit, but exchange rates have slowly crept back up and the growth figures for the UK have not been affected as predicted. But it is important to remember that we simply do not know yet what deals will be struck. There can be no denying that there are huge political changes and events happening all across the world right now. Trump’s victory took most commentators by surprise and other countries have elections this year. The money markets do not like uncer- tainty and threats of possible protectionism and import/export tariffs and duties will cause business headaches. But right now, all that is in the future and if 2016 has taught us anything it should be to be wary of predictions! All I feel fairly certain of venturing is that companies need to innovate and bring new products to market. Electronics is pervasive in almost every field of human activity, and designers will address chal- lenges that are tangible – technical, new product, new features. So if we feel uncertain of our ability to reflect on world events, let us focus on what we do know – supporting design engineers. Let’s start with some facts: in 2016, Mouser had revenues of over $1bn with international sales valued at over $500m and Eu- rope’s share of that a shade over 50 per cent. In a pretty short time, we have grown to be a truly international company. Our success is based on a fundamental commitment to supporting the design engineer – and this is one thing that will never change.
The pillars of our success are to have the correct inventory, the best logistics and an absolute culture of customer service. Of course, how we deliver on those elements changes and develops in line with market requirements.
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To provide more detail, we believe that if you are going to sup- port design activity, you need the latest parts which enable de- signers to differentiate their end products against those of their competitors. So
Mouser.com features more than four million products online from more than 600 manufacturers. Just to give an example, for Texas Instruments, we carry around 10 per cent more part numbers - that is distinct devices – than our nearest competitor, and about double that of traditional “High Service” players. Volume distributors limit their stocks to products that sell in big numbers, thereby limiting their ability to new stock the lat- est parts, and smaller players only carry one tenth the number of different items.
Our model is to ship from one central facility in Texas. This means we can invest for maximum efficiency. To support our ever-expanding business – across Europe, year-on-year sales are up by 15 per cent, and customer count is even better, up by 19 per cent - last year we opened an extension to our worldwide warehouse, roughly doubling its capacity. That is now fully oper- ational, with more than 800,000 distinct parts in stock and avail- able to buy. We are already planning another phase of expansion with more ground acquired, so that growth can be maintained. To put it in perspective, right now we hold close to $500m of in- ventory, a 66 per cent increase on two years ago. Combined with our sophisticated automated ordering, packaging and dis- patch systems, this means that delivery to customers in most parts of the world is in two to three days. Customer service is another cornerstone of our business, driven right from the top by our president and CEO, Glenn Smith. Top of most design engineers’ priority list for a parts sup- plier is the availability of new products and delivery – we’ve al-
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