The Soft Pitch

As VP of PR for Avnet, I often get to hear about great stuff the team is doing around the world before everyone else. Or sometimes I just get a news clip after the fact about something that happened in the UK or India or Malaysia. Either way, almost every day I’m reading something about Avnet activities very far from my personal home base here in Phoenix. It reminds me of just how “flat” our world is and how connected we are these days.  (By the way, we post the highlights of our news coverage daily to the Press Room and you can subscribe to it via RSS.)

So, I’m sharing a couple news clips I got on things Avnet’s doing that never saw a press release or were never promoted beyond a single country’s borders, but I thought worthy of sharing:

This first story comes from the UK where we recently upgraded a facility called

 THE [resource] . THE [resource]  houses a variety of technologies where resellers can come in with a customer and do live demonstrations in an upscale environment.  We’ve had this facility for almost 5 years and it was previously dedicated only to IBM but now we’ve  expanded the technology available for demos.  Interestingly enough, we also opened an IBM-focused center for demos recently in Malaysia and a few years ago one in Poland. We’ve also got similar centers in the US and undoubtedly in many places I don’t know about it. What strikes me most is that we are working to leverage scale and scope and offer the same or similar services in local markets with a twist usually to meet local needs.

The second story comes from India where we recently announced we’ve expanded our global footprint with IBM with several other suppliers soon to follow .  This comes on the heels of our acquisition of Ontrack in India and the team is working quickly to deliver a wide range of value-added solutions and services in that market to resellers. Hardly a week goes by where we’re not announcing a new supplier, a new service, a new technology being offered somewhere.  Expanding by geography, technology and suppliers is a key part of our growth strategy.

I didn’t mean this to be the IBM post, but the truth is we’re one of IBM’s largest value-add distributors in the world – but I could also say the same of HP and Sun. The story of expansion just keeps going – we’re expanding with our other leading suppliers as well – NetApp, EMC, etc. Maybe instead of a global footprint it should be a global boot print. We keep growing. It’s kind of like that movie, “The Never Ending Story.”   Each time you open the page, the story takes a new turn and continues.

Globalization isn’t anything new. There’s been a slew of books pointing out the globalization of just about everything from Starbucks to Sony to Siemens. Just take a walk down any shopping district and you’ll see brands representing every region of the globe. But in the world of computing resellers and systems integrators whose bread-and-butter customers are local, mid-market businesses, globalization has been talked about more than actually implemented. Until now. I’ve heard journalists from the computing trade publications ask are resellers really interested in globalization?  Do you know a reseller who is doing business globally that I can talk to?  The answer is yes and yes.  Avnet’s Technology Solutions operating group has launched a Global VAR Advisory Council just to work with VARs (value-added resellers) on the challenges of doing business globally.

Harry Edwards, Avnet’s senior vice president of Global Strategic Vendor Integration and Solutions for the Avnet Technology Solutions group, acknowledges doing business internationally can be challenging. “Worrying about what political pitfalls to avoid, quoting in different currencies, negotiating payment terms and ensuring products get from one location to another is a lot like throwing darts while blindfolded and hoping to hit the bull’s-eye. The problem is, it really distracts resellers from doing what they do best, which is proposing and delivering solutions to their customers.”

The VAR council has seven global resellers, but Avnet Technology Solutions Global President John Paget says he knows of at least 35 actively doing business globally and the number is growing daily.  A couple quotes from Avnet employees on the topic of globalization I thought interesting:

“Even in the Polish market we find companies that want to become more multinational. Global means more power, which gives us more financial strength, business relationships and growth capabilities in terms of best-practice sharing. The idea should be that we think globally but act locally, because every country has a specialized market and still some vendors let them have the power to decide locally. Every initiative should be tailored to the local market.”

– Adam Dyszkowski, Country Manager, Warsaw, Poland

“it is customers who drive us to think and act globally. While our customers pave their way for global expansion, we need to have Avnet operations close to those of our customers to canvas more business. Actually, it is the key driving force for Avnet to set up an integration center in Tianjin, China, to support international customers.”

– Sophie Li, General Manager, Tianjin, China

From Poland to China.  I guess the world is flat even for resellers.