I recently had the opportunity of meeting with Steve Stafford, Managing Director of EBV-Electrolink, and Stephanie Jones, Intersil Distribution Manager, North Europe, at the recent ADEC exhibition at Gallagher Estate. Here they spoke about the strengths of the Intersil and EBV- Electrolink partnership, and emphasised the fact that with the new 'meaner and leaner' Avnet EM behind it, the service, speed and efficiency that EBV is now offering its South African clients, is unsurpassed.
Intersil is a developer of silicon chips for the burgeoning market of highly integrated voice, video and data communication devices, and is focused on developing products that comprise the 'building blocks' for data communication devices. The Intersil communication portfolio includes wireless LAN chipsets for 'mobile connectivity', communication products for broadband access to sophisticated telecom WANs - both wired and wireless - and intelligent power management ICs and components.
"The acquisition of Veba Electronics by Avnet in 2000 brought EBV and its sister company WBC into the Avnet family. The subsequent re-organisation has now resulted in the formation of five focused business units and a rationalisation of its line cards. This has meant that Intersil will now partner only with EBV in Europe and South Africa," said Jones.
A few years ago the giant broadline distributor Avnet realised it was suffering from a bout of 'corporate heaviness' and decided it was time to rethink its business strategy. Aiming to replicate the nimbleness of smaller distributors who claim they can serve their customers more quickly and more personally, Avnet first created specialised divisions like the Avnet Electronics Marketing Group and Avnet Computer Marketing group, followed by the creation of Avnet Applied Computing. In February this year, to create more focus within the electronics components division, Avnet Electronics Marketing (EM) EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), as the first region, announced its new 'Speed Boat' strategy which has just been launched.
Avnet EM now comprises five separate and highly focused, specialised electronic components distribution organisations. These small, specialised business units ('Speed Boats') are served internally by a common integrated Pan-European logistical backbone and supply-chain. With last year's acquisition of EBV-Elektronik and sister company WBC, Avnet became the largest electronic components distributor in Europe, with year 2000 proforma sales of around $2,8 bn. EBV-Elektronik is a specialist European semiconductor broadliner that operates from a single mega-warehouse in Poing, Germany. EBV's logistical and technical services backbone, Avnet Logistics, claims it ships more than 1,6 million line items annually, while also offering customers short delivery times of 24 h and less.
"EBV-Elektronik has been a long-standing and very successful partner for Intersil in Europe. Its focused approach to the market, with a small number of semiconductor franchises has proven to be a very successful model. This was extended in South Africa with EBV's acquisition of Electrolink, and EBV Electrolink (EBV) has successfully grown its Intersil business over the past two years, with a 36% growth in 2000," adds Jones.
According to Stafford, in marketing and sales, more and more responsibility for the broad market is drifting from suppliers to distributors, and more customers are regarding distribution as the competent source for products and information, and also as a partner for future market creation concepts. He says that one of EBV's key strengths is that with a limited specialised line card, it provides a full sales service and strong technical support to customers which most of the manufacturers are no longer able to handle directly.
Adds Jones; "Many semiconductor companies have gone through big changes over the past few years and Intersil has been no different. Only two years ago, as Harris Semiconductor, we were a 'broadline' supplier. Now we have emerged as Intersil, a leading supplier of analog, mixed-signal and radio frequency semiconductors for high-growth communications markets. Our refocus, on a more niche range of products, has been very successful and we have seen a similar refocus within our distribution partners."
The technical competitive advantage Intersil provides its customers is rooted in its proven ability to develop and sustain long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. According to the company, the customers' request for collaboration - from initial concept to product completion - is one driver that has helped keep Intersil on the cutting edge of technology. In seeing the strengths of the EBV distribution model, Intersil is leveraging this distributor support to its full advantage.
"The EBV business model is unique in its customer support. On one side they hold a huge stock of fast-moving commodities servicing a broad customer base. On the other, they run a program called Marketing Innovative Products (MIP), that provides the latest information on high end devices," adds Jones. "This approach has aligned well with Intersil's strategy - we still have a number of commodity products such as RS232 drivers, the DGxxx family of switches and muxes, and power management products - and EBV has done a good job of taking them to market. However, as we release more niche products, the MIP program has also been very successful as a demand creation tool."
EBV's MIP program is a sales philosophy the company has developed that involves dedicated Field Applications Engineers concentrating on the latest technologies to add value to customers' product developments. MIP informs customers about the latest innovations and state-of-the-art products, provides them with a brief, efficient description of new products, and also provides technical support.
"The ADEC exhibition has been an excellent format to emphasise the strong partnership between our two companies, and EBV-Electrolink looks forward to further enhancing the partnership, and indeed expanding Intersil's market share of its products in South Africa," concludes Stafford.
As EBV's slogan succinctly puts it, 'Distribution was yesterday. Today is EBV.'
For further information contact Steve Stafford, EBV-Electrolink, (021) 421 5350, [email protected]
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