Supplier Acceleration Drives Avnet Technology Solutions’ Profitable Growth

June 3, 2012 - PRLog -- We caught up with Philip Whyte, Vice President, Global Supplier Business Development & Marketing, who was in Singapore recently to meet with Avnet Technology Solutions’ business partners and explore supplier expansion opportunities. Together with Michael Costigan, Vice President, Marketing & Business Innovation, who oversees business innovation, marketing and supplier relations in Asia Pacific, we had a good conversation on how Avnet is increasingly putting emphasis on enhancing supplier engagement and developing strategic marketing initiatives to ensure supplier success.

To kick start the interview, Philip Whyte talked about his strategic role in supplier engagement at Avnet. He explained that the role of Global Supplier Business Development essentially entails him to identify top strategic suppliers in the market. Together with two supportive senior leaders managing relationships with IBM, Microsoft, VMware, Hitachi Data Systems and Oracle, Philip related how he would explore and develop same-level of executive relationships with the other five partners on Avnet’s Top Ten Suppliers List, with the goal of driving mutual, profitable growth. His marketing role on the other hand ensures that Avnet’s messages come across crystal clear to suppliers and make them aware and appreciate Avnet’s differentiators, and the value it brings into the market and the edge it has over competitors.

As an illustration of Avnet’s focus on supplier relations, Avnet recently initiated the Global Technology Executive Forum (GTEF), which had an overwhelming participation of Avnet’s top suppliers whom according to Philip, make up 75% of Avnet revenues. During the forum, Avnet and their suppliers talked about the 3Cs, namely, compliance, culture and connections. Compliance and culture are key components in the global business; the forum functions as a community in which executives can communicate with each other on best practices, hardships and ways to overcome obstacles together. On the topic of connections, it’s essential to ensure that suppliers have a good understanding of what Avnet does with the integration capabilities and its entire global supplier business operation.

On Avnet’s recent success of ranking 108th in the list of Fortune 500, Philip highlighted the role that customer engagement plays in the overall success of the company. Philip acknowledged the importance of their two core customer segments – the suppliers and resellers. “Our relationships with the suppliers are all about people. At the end of day, it’s a people business, and it’s what makes us successful and who we are. ” said Philip.

Complementing Philip’s role on the global level, Michael’s role in the Asia Pacific region is to examine existing relationships with global partners and replicate in Asia Pacific market, to bring about programs and processes into the regional market and provide such solutions at a consistent quality. Michael aims to extract and leverage best practices from past experiences of successful programs across the geographies, be it operational program, logistical program, sales engagement program, SolutionsPath program or technical program, and introduce them into the region and countries.

In addition to that, Michael noted, it is significant to build supplier relationships at the regional level since the regional market is diverse and different from global market. Avnet currently is partnering with Juniper Networks and Network Appliance and working on a strategic plan for them to expand business across the region.

When asked about the rewarding aspects of their roles, both Philip and Michael unanimously answered “people”. Philip expressed his passion in listening to its partners’ problems, be it lack of market share or urgent need of solutions, then wholeheartedly devoting to finding suitable solutions for them. Michael agreed, highlighting that the business of Avnet is about people and relationships. Michael related how he enjoys meetings, traveling around the region, experiencing different cultures and cuisines, and through a deeper level of engagement with Avnet employees, partners and customers eventually accelerating success of Avnet Technology Solutions in Asia Pacific.

Please watch the video below for more information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Mhvdc0YM4