Distribution


Channel reorganisation improves focus for Smiths Interconnect


Giuseppe Lancella, vice president Business Development at Smiths Interconnect talks to CIE editor, Amy Wallington about the reorganisation over the last couple of years


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n March 2017, Smiths Interconnect announced a reorganisation and rebranding of the group bringing together its technology brands: EMC Technology, Hypertac, IDI, Lorch, Millitech, RF Labs, Sabritec, TECOM, and TRAK under the single identity of ‘Smiths Interconnect’. Since this transition, the company has looked at new focuses and strategies throughout the business with the final goal to facilitate customer-focus and to gain access to new program and technology partnerships. Giuseppe Lancella, vice president Business Development, talks us


through some of the company’s changes. An area in which the company has played a major innovative role part in is the connector industry. An important focus for Smiths Interconnect is the connector market that is currently indicating a positive commercial trend. Lancella comments: “From a company perspective, the last few years have seen reorganisation processes involving several players in the connectors industry. Whilst the top tier players seem stable or even growing in their positions, the middle-sized players are, theoretically, more likely to be involved in mergers and


acquisitions. In addition to this, we see the growth of manufacturers in and from Asia. The future of the connector market looks promising as it is expected to grow globally from 2018 to 2023. The major growth drivers for this market are 3C applications (Computers, Communications, and Consumer Electronics), IoT, miniaturisation of electronic devices, and demand for products with advanced features, convenience, and high-speed connectivity.” An important focus in any business is customer relationships and how they are built and maintained. Lancella talks about how vital this is to the company. “Customer-focus is one of the five Smiths Interconnect values, which signifies the importance that the whole organisation assigns to them,” Lancella explains. “One of the main goals of the reorganisation and rebranding of Smiths Interconnect that we started in March 2017 was, indeed, to simplify interaction with customers through streamlined points of contact across the business, so as to improve communication and agility between both parties.” He continues: “Since the reorganisation, we have invested in further embedding our key account management programme to facilitate customer-focus and to gain access to new programmes and technology partnerships. We have also further streamlined our distribution channels to improve our service and reliability. At the beginning of the year Smiths


Giuseppe Lancella, VP business development, Smiths Interconnect 28 September 2018 Components in Electronics


Interconnect recognised its top performing distributors with awards. Commenting on this, Lancella states: “Awarding distributors was one of the key initiative of our new sales channel strategy aimed at working with effective and committed partners. We selected and honoured our top business partners for business growth and design-in activity in the Americas, Asia and EMEA. We were pleased to be able to recognise outstanding performance by our partners and hope this appreciation will act as a further motivation for all of them to continue to support our customers to the best of their ability. The awards followed the distributors’ performance evaluation programme that was implemented to increase the value of the sales channel, globally because our distribution channel is a critical and integral part of our overall business success.” Smiths Interconnect works closely with their distribution partners to ensure the best possible process for product distribution. Lancella comments: “With distribution


channels that span the globe, we have come to establish ourselves as a worldwide leading provider of high performance interconnect solutions by establishing key partnerships with industry professionals to deliver the highest level of service. Since the launch of our new distribution strategy we have improved our territorial and technical coverage of the global and local markets by selecting the most appropriate partners for our product portfolio and our customers’ needs. We have introduced some beneficial initiatives for them in order to recognise their efforts and to enhance our ability to serve our customer base, successfully, by providing a fast response to their application needs. “As mentioned before, our customers’ needs and satisfaction are our key focus and through our sales channels we can offer a quicker service, tailored to their specific requests. We have different types of partners depending on the markets, customers or territory with specific characteristics so, through distribution we are able to be flexible, cost-effective and meet our customer base demand through the most efficient channel.”


He continues: “In late 2016 we started our new sales channel strategy and the first objective we accomplished was to improve the quality and operational capability of our distributors. We selected the most appropriate partners by categorising them in three different levels (Master, Gold and Silver) depending on specific parameters and we have introduced benefits and initiatives to motivate and reward them for the continuous support to our joint business growth.


Lancella concludes by talking about changes in the supply chain and how it is affecting the business. He says: “As a global company, we have a supply chain that covers all regions of the world. At Smiths Interconnect we adopt a ‘think global and connect local’ approach which grants flexibility to comply with different customer requirements and enables a higher level of resilience against unexpected geo-political and environmental events. In the future, we will continue to reinforce our supplier partnerships in all regions of the world, working closely to develop new technologies and improve both quality and efficiency, whilst endeavouring to have no substantial dependencies on any individual source.


www.smithsinterconnect.com www.cieonline.co.uk


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