EONEWS: What is your opinion regarding this year electronic market trends (electronics means not only semiconductor but also passives and electromechanical) globally and in particular in the European region?
ALBANI: Europe is leading the innovation in certain specific vertical markets. The globalization can make everything simpler or more complex. Simpler if the EU will lead the technology, investing in innovation; complex, if EU has to follow the traditional application without the right portion of innovation and new technology, suffering the international low cost manufacturing competition. I can see a positive trend in specific high tech market segments.
EONEWS: Do you think that Europe could play in the short-medium period a key role in the global electronic market? If yes: in which sector?
ALBANI: EU a worldwide main actor in Automotive, Aerospace and Defence, Security and Industrial Automation. If we enlarge the view of the industrial automation and we include the transportation segment, the green energy/power we can see a space to grow in all of them, where EU is still keeping from 1/3 to 1/5 of the worldwide market.
EONEWS: What are the most important events that have influenced the electronic distribution in Europe this year?
ALBANI: I think it’s embedded world, plus some country based specific seminar dedicated to vertical application or technology.
EONEWS: What are the strategies you implement to support your future expansion in Europe?
ALBANI: VIA does still promote its processors and chipsets, but the focus for this kind of product lines is not so much related to the European territory. VIA moves towards system and total solutions, such as Digital Signage, Medical / Healthcare, POS / POI, Kiosk Systems/ Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Another direction is we are focusing on ODM customers. These ODM customers do like very much that we help them to decrease their time to market and cut down development costs as well as minimizing a lot of risks typically involved if developing own products from scratch on the basis of just a few silicon components.
The market place has a lot of pressure to come up with more new products in shorter times at lower costs with fewer resources. We help them to meet their strategic goals and maintain a competitive position in the wilderness of the market place.
EONEWS: From a general point of view, in your opinion, are there still key barriers today to overcome, to improve the ecosystem (logistics, supply chain of vendors, distributors, dealers, etc.) of electronic distribution in Europe? If yes, what are them, and what are the solutions?
ALBANI: I think we have many barriers, mainly created from the ecosystem itself. I mean that many companies, whatever is the position in the eco-system, are suffering the crisis and are not able to re-invent or modify the business model. So that, they are simply cutting the cost and are not working properly like in the past, trying to survive and pass the crisis with some wound but still alive.
Stock is never enough, forecast mechanism doesn’t work anymore, very difficult get commitment and focus. This scenario is the reality today and the only solution I can see is work into structure optimization thinking at the right fundamental to do. A little bit comes back to work as we did.
EONEWS: Do you envision a particular shift in the evolution of this business model for the next future?
ALBANI: Our observations and experiences from the last couple of years /the last decade have shown that most customers in the Europe region do prefer a “finished/total solution”. It first started with boards, later with systems and now moving towards a total embedded solution based on highly flexible systems together with optimized software. Additionally those who purchased the “classic silicon components” to create their own products are getting less and less. Times have really changed. Nobody is purchasing “parts” anymore, nobody is building own stuff. Everybody is now looking for ready made solutions. Shorter time to market, higher flexibility, more agility, cost cut-down, the end customer is the winner, as the supply chain gets more simple and more transparent.
Read the article on EONews 567-September