Focusing on EDEs globally

Strategic goals for 2009

• Work with customers to ensure that we have the products and solutions they need, when they need them.
• Add additional stocked product to enhance our EDE proposition and add 500,000 products to our “on demand” line during our three year target period.
• Continue deep investment in primary, secondary and tertiary engineering support for our customers.
• Develop an environmentally friendly product offering, and engage with customers and suppliers to find new ways to reduce our environmental footprint.

Achievements in 2009

• We have continued to invest in innovation. During the year we have designed and developed an eCommunity that brings EDEs together to network, collaborate and create designs. Our eCommunity has been tested by customers throughout the year and is expected to be launched during FY2010.
• During the year we added 54,000 new EDE products. Of these, over 5,000 were new to market EDE products, in high demand by our EDE customers as they look to utilise the newest, most energy efficient technology in their innovations.
• Through continued investment in our EDE proposition, we have opened two Global Technology Centres, one in Chengdu, China and one in Bangalore, India. These Centres give our customers direct access to our in-house EDE and product specialists. Available 24 hours a day, customers can contact us for assistance with a product or questions related to their design.
• Investment in Innovation is ongoing and during the year we invested £2 million into our own research and development of services and systems to support EDEs.

Priorities for 2010

• Launch our eCommunity site to the EDE population around the world, continually enhancing the offering and adapting the model to reflect the needs and wants of the broad EDE market.
• Work with suppliers to ensure we have the latest, most specialised products that our customers demand for their designs.
• Ensure efficient and cost effective stocking processes are in place, making the most of Premier Farnell’s global footprint to leverage our purchasing power around the world.
• Invest further to ensure that we have the in-house expertise to provide dedicated support to our EDE customers.
• Develop a line of innovative tools for EDE customers that enables a seamless environment of design simulation and prototype building.
• Review and monitor developments in environmental regulations coming into effect. We must monitor our stock levels, providing timely information to our customers regarding the implications for them and adapting our stocking levels accordingly to ensure that we remain a market leader in this area.

Consumers are placing increasingly high demands on EDEs as they have come to expect more of new designs than ever before. They want aesthetically pleasing products that are fast, have huge capacities for storage, perform more functions than ever before, are smaller than their previous version, have become more affordable and are safe for their use, as well as the environment.
We know the demands our customers face, and we understand what they need from their high service distributor. EDE customers around the world have broadly similar needs regardless of their location in the world. They want:

• Every item for their design from one supplier with a broad product range;
• A fast and user friendly website;
• Accurate and accessible product information;
• The knowledge that the product they have received is authentic; and
• Their order delivered correctly and quickly.

Our range of stocked EDE products is constantly evolving. Our product teams work with our in-house technical specialists, EDE customers and suppliers to ensure that we have the specialised products needed for new innovations. When a product is no longer demanded by customers we have the processes in place to move it out of our inventory, efficiently and cost effectively. During the year we added more than 5,000 brand new to market products. These products are highly valuable to our customers for their designs, but it is also crucial to our suppliers that we seed the market with their new products. Our high service proposition is valuable to our suppliers as well as our customers; without a vehicle such as ours their components might never make it onto large scale production lines.

Our customers are designers and they want to design, not spend a lot of time finding their components and conducting research, though this is an increasingly important part of their role. The speed of search on our websites is best in class. We are continually evolving our search function to represent accurately how our customers conduct their search for products and information. Our websites include extensive libraries of product information, covering technical, environmental and legislative issues. This information is compiled in-house, by engineers for engineers and then translated for our local language websites and adapted for local requirements, ensuring that our customers the world over receive the same access to this valuable information. We have also developed an innovative line of tools to help customers design with greater ease.

As well as simplicity of search and selection, customers also need a supply chain in which they can have confidence. As an authorised distributor of more than 2,500 suppliers throughout the world, the integrity of our supply chain is of the utmost importance. Our sourcing policies seek to ensure that product leaving our distribution facilities is genuine and has not been altered or tampered with from the point of production.

Time is of the essence for our EDE customers, particularly as the global economy slows. Designs are time sensitive and design cycles are becoming shorter. In reaction to the slowing economy, we anticipate that many customers will leapfrog into new generations of design in order to remain competitive when markets recalibrate.

EDE customers depend on us to get their products to their desks on the afternoon of order or the following morning. Our high service model ensures that 99.6% of orders are delivered either the same day or the next day from ten distribution facilities around the world.