The Soft Pitch

Here’s a story I saw in one of our internal publications that I thought was just great.  Just shows that being a part of the community isn’t always about raising money or donating time!

Avnet Helps Chandler PD Sniff Out Crime  

Avnet’s Chandler, Ariz., USA, component distribution center ships more than 10,000 line items every day, but by night the facility has another purpose – dog training.

With more than 404,000-square-feet of space, the distribution center is an ideal location for training the Chandler Police Department’s (CPD) drug-sniffing dogs. “After hiding drugs throughout the warehouse, they turn the dogs loose to see if they can find them,” says Jim Smith, president of Avnet Logistics.

CPD has conducted such training several times during the last few years, always after midnight when the warehouse is empty. The partnership began when a CPD officer noticed a sign regarding employee drug testing while following up on a stolen car.

“We gave him a tour of the warehouse and were contacted soon after about the training,” says Smith. “The City of Chandler has been very good to us, and we were happy to participate. So many of our employees live in Chandler; helping combat the drug trade makes the area safer for their families.”

What’s the Avnet team in Singapore doing?  Creating smiles — here’s Cory’s report on how the team in Singapore helped on a project to provide glasses to the elderly.  Read on -

What motivates you to give back to the community? That’s a question I asked myself when writing this blog entry and quite honestly, it took me a while to really dissect what truly motivates me to volunteer. We all know that we should volunteer and that it is the right thing to do, but what is it that motivates you to give back?

When I was a junior in high school I decided to join a course that was structured to show students what type of an impact they can have on the community when they volunteer. This class required me and my classmates to volunteer for 25 hours a month. My teacher organized an event that brought in a few different organizations to speak to us about volunteer opportunities and I was particularly moved by a family-run therapy center that focused on children who have autism. I was hooked after the first week of volunteering! I was able to bring a smile to a child’s face, to make them laugh even for just one moment and I most importantly, help make a difference. Maybe I didn’t save the world from destruction or stop an act of nature from destroying a town, but I did make an impact on a few families and for me, that’s more than worth it! It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Avnet employees all around the world are making a difference and this couldn’t be demonstrated any better than Avnet Technology Solutions Singapore. The folks in Singapore partnered with The Eye Spectacles for Elderly Project to help those less fortunate in their community. This organization worked closely with the Singapore Lions Club and optometry students from the Singapore Polytechnic Institution. They were able to help 35 people get something that many of us might take for granted –an eye exam.

There exist many different dialects in Singapore and this creates a challenge for doctors in the area when trying to gather medical information from patients. Avnet Singapore saw an opportunity to help by asking their multi-lingual employees to act as translators for the many different dialects, breaking that big barrier that stood between the patient and doctor.

“Employees were touched when they saw the smiles,” said Bennett Wong, country general manager for Singapore. “Most were asking if we can do this more often.” Beyond translating, Avnet Singapore helped sponsor the event and paid for the eyeglasses for the 25 people. Wong believes that this event aligns with Avnet’s core values, saying that it showcases teamwork because everyone came together to use their different talents and help the elderly. “We wanted our employees and friends of Avnet to enjoy volunteer work and be an example of a responsible corporate organization,” Wong said. After volunteering with this organization, Wong said that they plan to volunteer with one charity a quarter from now on. Can’t wait to see what they come up with next time!

Cory Fetter

Whether you love him or hate him, Jim Cramer of Mad Money grabs attention.  Right now, I’m lovin’ it.  Cramer interviewed Avnet Chairman and CEO Roy Vallee    yesterday, calling Avnet the “largest supermarket of tech in the world.”

It’s hard to describe distribution to my friends and neighbors – “Oh, you’re a middle man.” Well sort of – but so much more.  I always point out to them that only the very, very large companies can buy direct from companies like IBM, HP and Intel.  So, say you need some chips to go into a heart monitor you’re building or a GPS unit and your company isn’t one of the “big guys” – who you gonna call?  Avnet. And you’re most likely going to talk to one of Avnet’s design engineers to make sure you’ve got the right chips, best processors, power supply and other components for your design. You may even ask for help understanding the latest technology and designing it into your product. If you’re a regional hospital looking to upgrade your storage capacity in order to house all those medical files and oh, by the way let’s make it so our doctors and nurses can access them easily when they need them, who you gonna call? An Avnet partner who understands the technology probably better than you and can get it for you when and where you need it – and that partner, in turn, will work with Avnet to design a solution that will help the doctors get the information they need when they need it.

After all, you and I don’t buy Frosted Flakes directly from Kellogg’s.  Your neighborhood grocer probably doesn’t either.  Only the largest of grocery chains buy direct – for everybody else there is the “supply chain” which gets products from the producers to the end users.

Clearly Cramer gets it – and loves Avnet.  Here’s a quote from the Mad Money blog, Mad Cap Recap:

“So, why should investors care about Avnet? Cramer said AVT is a technology distributor that deals with both components and final, finished products. This means the company has its finger on the pulse of the tech sector and a better sense of how these tech companies are actually doing than any other business out there right now.”  I added the bold, but the words belong to them!

You can watch Cramer’s interview of Roy on the Mad Cap Recap .

 One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.

Henry David Thoreau, poet, writer, philosopher

Sandeep Patel, internal software account manager at the Oracle Division of Avnet Technology Solutions UK, decided to wager more than most would ever consider. Every two years Comic Relief organizes a UK-wide fundraising event called, Red Nose Day. On Red Nose Day everyone across the UK is encouraged to put on a Red Nose and do something silly to raise money for disadvantaged persons in Africa and the UK. Well, Patel decided to wager his long locks of hair. He was willing to shave his precious hair off if the division could raise £1000 by days end.

Sandeep Patel Before

“It was a spontaneous suggestion from my colleagues to take part, but we had the opportunity to change peoples’ lives for the better –how could I decline?” said Patel in an e-mail. Because Patel decided to take action and do something, he helped inspire the whole office. By 9:30 a.m. the donation Web site was up and running and within one hour, approximately £850 was raised.

“The target of £1000 had been reached by 11:15 a.m. but the funds kept coming in,” said Patel. By days end approximately £1600 was raised and Patel knew what had to come… on went the razor and off went the hair! Patel said everyone in the office was extremely positive about his new look.

Sandeep Patel After

Because Patel made just one commitment, he rallied an entire office and made a very big impact for the organization. I think it’s not always about how much you do but what you do and this story shows exactly how that can work.

“Don’t be put off by raising money for charity –the generosity of your colleagues and friends will amaze you,” said Patel. “They (your colleagues) all want you to do well and get the most you can for the charity of your choice. So go for it!”

I agree, go for it and see what you can do by doing something.

Cory Fetter

I love working with new people — they have fresh ideas, try things I hadn’t thought of, and see with a perspective that challenges me to look again at a challenge, an issue — even listen to new musicians or read books I would have glossed over.  So, I’ve asked Cory Fetter to write for Soft Pitch and he’s going to be specifically looking at what Avnet employees are doing in the community around the globe.  Cory is an intern who joined the Avnet team a few months ago.  He’s helping us understand better how to reach college students and (I hope) learning a little bit about the inner workings of a Fortune 500 company at th same time.

Here’s his first post on a group of Avnet employees in Minnesota:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
    -Margaret Mead

I think whether it’s a small or large group, Avnet employees are changing the world and this couldn’t be exemplified any more than by the EM Bloomington branch in Minneapolis Minnesota. They were able to raise $200 and more than 200 toys for the Marines Toys for Tots Foundation.

When speaking with Gib Bendell, supervisor of sales and marketing at the Bloomington branch, I couldn’t help but think about a recent article that I read titled, “Happiness Can Spread Among People Like a Contagion, Study Indicates”  by Rob Stein in the Washington Post. The study that he is referring to in his article was conducted with more than 4,700 people that were followed for over 20 years. Stein wrote, “Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.”

I believe that not only does giving to others evoke happiness but the simple act of giving can spread to others throughout the office, just as this study suggests. “It was really positive,” said Bendell. “The people were checking the box on a daily basis to see how we were coming along and on days when it was filling up faster, you could definitely hear about it.” The giving frenzy wasn’t just confined to the Avnet employees. Bendell said they had noteworthy support from local suppliers, saying that at least a dozen came in and donated. Thanks to their efforts, many more kids this year will have a happy holiday on Christmas.

Whether it’s down the street or across the world, Avnet employees are helping out wherever and whenever possible. So, don’t hesitate to get up and do something, even if you think you don’t have enough support, because even the smallest effort can spread like wildfire and change the world.

 Cory Fetter