The Soft Pitch

I had the opportunity of being included in a business roundtable with Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the U.S. There was a nice turnout of business leaders – some of the usual suspects – other large companies with a significant presence in Phoenix like Intel and Honeywell.  But there were also some smaller companies that one might find a bit surprising such as small manufacturing companies exporting construction hardware.  Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong’s main point was that we – the U.S. – have a mutual interest with China: growth and economic success. Of course, political differences exist, but still he spent a fair amount of time presenting his country’s position that we all benefit by working together as “friends.” Couldn’t agree more, and I was reminded of my mom’s old saying that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. He also explained China’s philosophical commitment to environmentally-friendly policies and urged caution when it comes to protectionist policies.

It’s interesting to see how quickly we can build bridges across borders in the business world, establishing connections all over the world.  For example, Avnet’s business in China is now more than $2 billion annually, we have 24 offices across the country and almost 1700 employees. We’ve been able to grow quickly in part fueled by the growth of the Chinese economy, but also because we adhere to a market-led philosophy: With more than 30 different business units globally, each market Avnet serves has different priorities and requirements, based on their unique business environments. Avnet leverages its global scale and scope to create local value propositions that address customer and supplier expectations in each market. What that boils down to is we give the local management a great deal of autonomy in making decisions and running their businesses in their market. As the world’s largest value-add technology distributor, the strategy seems to be working.

By now its well into the evening in China and our Avnet Technology Solutions team in Asia is gearing up to execute on the announcement made in Beijing earlier today that Avnet is now going after the solutions distribution business in China. This didn’t get the same splash as our announcement two weeks ago of the acquisition of Nippon in Japan, virtually doubling our business in that market.  It didn’t get the same splash only because we’re working to build our solutions business in China, not buy it. Several reasons for this, but foremost being that we want the business to work with the rest of Avnet’s culture and offer customers the same dedication to value.  So, the team is hiring key individuals, leveraging our existing infrastructure (more than 15 facilities including warehouses, an integration center, and Avnet Electronics Marketing offices), nurturing relationships with suppliers (we’ll start from IBM and I’m sure very quickly add others), and reaching out to customers.

The world is in an economic crisis – turmoil – upheaval – shift –  whatever – pick your term. (As an aside, is it just me or are the headlines becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy scaring people and businesses into pulling back, thereby triggering more sluggish sales, which triggers a headline, which promotes more fear, leading to less spending, which triggers a headline…?)  Meanwhile, for those prudent and careful business managers this time represents opportunities to invest.  Do we need to readjust for the short term? Yes and yes we, Avnet, are taking the appropriate steps. Will this downturn last forever? No. So while we’re aligning resources for the short term, we’re still investing for the long term. We’re investing in the right places, with the right resources to be ahead of the market and positioned well for the turn. Asia is a great example. Millions of businesses and people, technologically savvy, and ready for expansion.  We’re ready too.

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.