EONEWS: What are your opinions regarding the major trends for this market (slowing, growing, booming…)?
Purgatorio: Electronic component distribution sales have continued to rise at a steady rate across Europe. The overall distribution market has grown faster than what was initially forecasted, capturing $1.78 Billion in sales revenue last year. As compared to single digit industrywide growth figures, Digi-Key reported an annual increase of 26-percent across the EMEA market. In Italy, the company experienced 24-percent year-over-year growth and, going forward, we anticipate a continuation of positive customer buying patterns.
EONEWS: What are the key strategies adopted by your company in the short/medium period to address (or to better address) the needs of the market?
Purgatorio: Digi-Key continues to build and evolve its business in response to evolving customer expectations. We’ve always been committed to listening and learning to our customers. With a laser-focus on the needs of the design engineer and their buying patterns, we continue to build upon our global ecommerce engine with value-added content, tools and resources that support the entire design process – from concept to production.
Centered around its unique, highly-efficient distribution model and an in-house inventory of over one million parts, Digi-Key is committed to a superior customer experience. As we head into 2015, we will continue to scale our global business by building upon our core competency of offering a broad product selection and fulfilling high-mix low volume orders.
Purgatorio: We’ve recently established some new partnerships in response to growing customer demand for a broader selection of EDA software tools. Last year, we collaborated with the industry leader in this space – Mentor Graphics – to launch a suite of professional EDA tools at a reasonable price. Customers also gain access to Mentor Graphics’ PartsQuest system which automatically links symbols and footprints to over 365,000 Digi-Key components.
EONEWS: What is the most important application?
Purgatorio: It’s hard to narrow it down to just one application with so many new and interesting new technologies emerging. Of course, one big initiative to driving innovation and new product design is, of course, “The Internet of Things” or IoT. Device-to-device connectivity is driving the development of new products incorporating embedded, wireless, sensors and motion control technologies. With many common electronic components at the core of these innovations, we’re seeing increasing demand for pre-built kits or development tools for engineers who choose to ‘buy’ versus ‘make’ some of commonly used modules.
While our supplier partners are hard at work developing new products and solutions in IoT, our commitment is to continue to expand our line card based on hot new technologies, customer interest and potential new business. One of our priorities is to build upon our roster of authorized suppliers while continuing to fill the gaps with innovative, new products that address growing demand from then engineering community.
EONEWS: Which are the key factors that set your company apart from the competition?
Purgatorio: Digi-Key’s unique approach to distribution and core value proposition comes down to the way we manage inventory and product fulfillment. Our globally centralized fulfillment center is ultra-efficient in delivering orders around the world within 48 hours. What keeps customers coming back is our vast inventory and our ability to consistently deliver high-mix, low volume orders – shipping 99.9-percent of our products on the same day the order is placed.
Digi-Key stands apart in its ability to efficiently and consistently support the design engineer and the component buyer – from product selection and design to rapid fulfillment to unmatched technical support and 0customer service.
EONEWS: And in the middle/long term (if you have a crystal ball!)?
Purgatorio: It’s hard to say what the future holds but one thing is for certain – and that is change! We learn from our customers and our suppliers and, at Digi-Key, we will always balance the realities of the business with one eye on the future. Of course, as ecommerce matures and technology advancements continue to change how buyers consume information and purchase products. In addition to continuing to localize our content to support our customers in EMEA and other parts of the world, we’re also looking at mobile technologies, enhanced video and multimedia user experiences and other options that bolster our ecommerce engine while appealing to the needs of the next generation buyer.