Local Support is Key to Customer Satisfaction and Arrow Success

Dear Reader

By the time you read this, Arrow will have celebrated the opening of its Regional Business Centre (RBC) in Southampton (see separate story in this issue of Arrow Innovation). This – Arrow’s tenth local office in the UK and Ireland - is an achievement that we are especially proud of, not least because it further demonstrates our willingness to invest and expand at a time when many other distributors are contracting and reducing workforce levels.

The success of the Arrow RBC strategy comes, in part, from the fragmentation of the electronics industry over recent years, and the corresponding growth of Small-to-Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Just like their counterparts in larger organisations, designers at these SMEs are under pressure to deliver innovative and cost-effective designs in ever decreasing time-to-market ‘windows’. These budgetary, time and resource pressures lead, inevitably, to the need for external assistance and, as the majority of SMEs will not be in a position to secure direct support from component manufacturers, this means calling on the distribution channel.

Arrow’s RBC programme, therefore, is a direct response to customer needs, and provides local contacts for all aspects of the support needed to take products from initial concept through to final market delivery.

Each RBC is, effectively, a self-contained business, staffed by dedicated account managers and support personnel who ensure that SME customers have access to Arrow’s full range of product, technical, commercial and supply chain solutions. In addition to access to a linecard of products from over 180 suppliers, for example, Arrow’s RBCs provide local contacts for ‘big company' benefits such as early notifications of forthcoming product obsolescence, technical design-in and manufacturing support, implementation of credit terms, inventory management, holding of buffer stock, expert advice on lead-free manufacture and impartial product comparisons.

I do hope that you enjoy reading this issue of Arrow Innovation. As always, if you have any comments and queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Chris McAneny
North European Marketing Director