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What's Farnell (element14) up to? And, semicon equipment bubble burst? Whoa!!
I’ve received two interesting reports today. One, from Premier Farnell on a name change and another from The Information Network on the troubles of the semicon equipment industry.
First, Premier Farnell plc announced the launch of a new, market leading customer proposition in Asia offering a significantly expanded inventory of products relevant to electronic design engineers, next-day delivery in Asia Pacific and an enhanced range of services, under the name element14.
I have not quite understood this move!
I wonder how is this going to help Farnell! It has had element14 for so long now. Hey, I even provided Farnell feedback on the element14 website back in July 2009 (in Bangalore), and even discussed with its executives in Singapore when they sought further queries on the feedbacks provided by me.
What’s Farnell (or element14) really up to?
At least, I don’t see any newness in Farnell’s element14 release. Unless, there’s a move to dilute the Farnell brand itself, which is and will be really strange!
I for one felt element14 was (and is) doing magnificiently as a standalone entity, and has done a great job in building a community of design engineers around itself.
The release also says that the Group’s businesses located in Australia, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand will be known as element14 and will offer customers and suppliers a multi-channel, multi-currency, multi-language way to source their product needs, quickly and easily.
So, I checked Farnell’s India site. Now, the India website of Farnell is confusing me. There’s a message on the site that says ‘Farnell Electronics (India) Pvt Ltd name change in progress’.
Where is the need to call Farnell by its original name in the UK, and why rename it elsewhere, especially in Asia? Is it that the brand name is not well known across Asia? What’s wrong in the first place with having two separate standalone and successful identities such as Farnell and element14?
It would be prudent on Farnell’s part to maintain element14 as the community it has been originally meant to be. For instance, why call Farnell India as element14 India all of a sudden?
I hope to hear from my friend, Ravi Pagar at Farnell soon, hopefully, in the morning. Have sent him the query. Name change or not, best wishes to element14/Farnell in its future endeavors.
Semicon equipment industry bubble burst?
Now to the second one! I also received an interesting report from The Information Network — where it says that the global semiconductor equipment industry bubble has burst!
It has also made interesting use of an analogy around “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen and the global semiconductor industry.
The report has set me off thinking. Just how can the global semiconductor industry afford to not overlook repeated warnings? This is peculiar! What could be the repercussions of a deteriorating semiconductor industry? The Information Network also mentioned industry pushouts. How will these benefit the industry in the long run?
I hope to speak with Dr. Castellano regarding the study and get some replies on my queries.
What’s very interesting is a prediction made at the end of this report. The Information Network says that firms such as AMAT, AMD, APD, ASML, AVZA, CAJ, FJTSY.PK, HPQ, INTC, MU, NVLS, OMG, TOELF.PK, TOSBF.PK and other IC, equipment, and material suppliers have or will be announcing their results soon. “Nearly all will point to a slowing in the next quarter in their releases and conference calls. It will get worst in the following quarter!”
Wow! That will be significant! Hey folks, I’m going to watch all of these firms very closely as they annouce their quarterly results. Suggest, you do the same.
Roundup of day 2 @ Electronica India 2010
Aqtronics is targeting nine segments — wireless, automotive, embedded, LED lighting, telecom, industrial, power, identification and IT enterprise. It has signed up Atheros, which has five SBO segments — Wi-Fi, Ethernet, powerline communications, GPS and PON. Aqtronics has used LEDs to light up its entire booth at the show.
Commenting on the industry trend, Ranga Prasad said there were visible signs of good pick up and growth for the last two quarters in India. Concerns remain on the lead times of inventory. Hopefully, this problem should get over by Q4 in India and Q1 2011 in the US.
My next stop was at Khanna Traders & Engineers, which has entered into a tie up with Japan’s Nihon for lead free solder. S.K. Khanna, managing director, said it is a patented product in 23 countries. It has already captured 60 percent market share in Europe and the United States, and has been previously running in over 40 countries across over 4,000 machines. This is said to be the only lead free solder with no silver coating.
Ms Kumud Tyagi, vice president, Bergen Associates.
It was a pleasure meeting Ms Kumud Tyagi, vice president, Bergen Associates. Quite rare to see a lady in a leadership position in an electronics outfit in India!
Bergen Associates has entered into a new partnership with Assemblon for pick and place machines. The company now has the complete SMT line of solutions for customers.
Bergen Associates is offering adhesives from Panacol — meant for most industries, such as semiconductors, electronics and automotive. It is also showcasing the laser direct structuring (LDI) technology on special 3D parts from LPKF Laser & Electronics AG, Germany, as well.
TransTechnology Pte Ltd is pretty buoyant on India — quite evident from the line-up of products on display. Christopher J. Fussner, president, said the company is offering the YS-24 from Yamaha. TransTechnology is also displaying the X3 Ekra screen printer — an entry level inline model. Another one is the Asymtek SL-940/941 conformal coating machines. The 940 is an inline machine while the 941 is a batch type machine.
Maxim SMT is showcasing the SPI-350 solder paste inspection system from CyberOptics, USA. This is said to be one of the fastest and most accurate machines around. It is also displaying the QX500 AOI machine, also from CyberOptics.
Some other highlights from day 2 at Electronica India 2010 include:
* Leaptech is displaying the Omron AOI machine with color highlighting technology as well as an axial component insertion machine from Sciencgo, China. It is also showcasing the M6ex mounting center from i-Pulse of Japan, a Yamaha group company.
* Schott Glass India Pvt Ltd is displaying electronic housings or packages for electronic components. Schott specializes in glass-to-metal seals, and also develops ceramic-to-metal seals. It is offering housings for quartz as well. Schott’s hybrid/microelectronic packages can be used for space, defence and telecom applications.
You can read all of these and more at tomorrow’s Electronica India 2010 and Productronica India 2010 Show Floor Daily, published by Debasish Choudhury for Global SMT & Packaging magazine, and compiled by yours truly.
A nice chat with Ashok Chandak of NXP Semiconductors on the status of electronics manufacturing in India was a great way to round off my day! I shall be writing about this interaction later.
That’s it from me from this year’s show floor. Hope to be back next year, God willing! Cheers!!
P.S.: You can download all the three show dailies from the show here. BTW, my name went missing from the show daily on Day 2. In fact, the lead story of day 2, featuring Ananth Kumar, has been written by me, as were all of the compiled news. It is an honest error on part of Global SMT & Packaging! 🙂 Enjoy reading!
Farnell looking to convert 3,500 prospects this year in India!
Now that’s what I call aggression!
Last July, I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Harriet Green, CEO, Farnell Electronics, a part of the Premier Farnell group of companies. It is soon going to be a year since the company set up presence in India. Farnell has aggressive plans for India, with the company likely to look at converting at least 3,500 prospects this year.
I met up with Nader Tadros, Commercial Marketing Director APAC, Premier Farnell (see picture here), and Navin Honnavar, marketing manager, Farnell Electronics India Pvt. Ltd to get an update on Farnell.
According to Tadros, Farnell is said to be the number 1 small-order high service multi-channel distributor in the world. “We carry obver 3,500 leading suppliers and 450,000 product stocks globally. We have 36 transactional websites in 23 languages,” he added.
Farnell currently has six warehouses — one in America, and two in Europe and three in Asia — Sydney, Shanghai and Singapore. In India, it now has nine branch offices, and one contact center and one global tech center (GTC) — in Bangalore. The GTC provides live chat and board level support, which also translates into global support.
Tadros said that Farnell is aggressively are supporting the EDE (electronic design engineers) community and MRO (maintenance, repair, operatoinal) marketplace. “We have taken particular focus on developing the EDE space, providing support, services and relevant products. We want to make sure the value proposition is mapped on to the EDE needs,” he said. Elaborating on the value proposition, he cited an example of x-ray machine manufacturers.
Global business strategy
Farnell has a four-pronged global business strategy. This includes:
* Focusing on global EDE customer segment.
* Increase business via the Web.
* Internationalization
* Continue to develop profitable MRO business.
Tadros believes that the power of the Web is tremendous. “It is very useful for customers to search and transact. Another area is customer demand. They are looking for efficiencies,” he added. “An important aspect that can help us is that we are able to understand customers; needs. The data that the web search is able to provide gives us the critical information. If a customer searches for a part, and we track that, we are able to service their needs better.”
Hasn’t Farnell been affected by the recession? Tadros said: “We are not immune to the recession. The volatlity is higher, and it is also at the customer level.” Honnavar added: “Our strategy seems to be working for us. We are maintaining our base in the MRO space. We are still pulling in customer requests and still growing.”
So, what else is Farnell doing, besides these activities? Well, it has adopted a multichannel approach for the Asia Pacific region. It has 154 staff in eight call centers, besides being involved in direct and e-marketing. The company has nine local websites — simplified chinese for China, thai for Thailand, and English for India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. Besides, it has 103 field sales engineers in 29 sales offices.
Aggressive plans
I started this post by saying I liked Farnell’s aggressive plans. It currently has 2,500 active customers and 9,000 prospects in India alone. The company has a target to reach $25 mn by 2010. It is also a walue added distributor offering products to leading suppliers such as Texas Instruments, Molex, and 3,500 other leading brands.
Touching on Farnell’s clients in India, Honnavar said: “We have independent design houses, resellers, R&D centers, educational centers, government organizations (such as BEL, HAL), etc., among our customers. The prospects includes a huge list of people. We have touched the top layers in tier 2 cities — such as Coimbatore and Ahmedabad. We are looking at converting 3,500 prospects this year.”
More focus on components, SMEs
The components industry isn’t exactly in the pink of health right now. Giving his views on the electronics and components space, Tadros said: “Customers themselves are not able to anticipate the demand for the next quarter or periods. We are seeing that there is still growth in the EDE space and inquiries are still coming in. During a recession, you have an opportunity to distinguish yourself from competition. There is pressure on teams as they have to continually innovate. Customers require more even support, more technical documentation, and look for faster turnaround times.”
Farnell is in a position to help those SMEs who are in the electronics and components spaces. Tadros said that the company can support such SMEs by helping them to build their markets in a timely fashion.
Honnavar added that Farnell is focusing on building a product and purchasing team, sitting out of Singapore and Hong Kong. “Moving forward, you will probably get to see more buying happening in the Asia Pacific region. Going ahead, a lot of sourcing will also be done from India.” The company intends to be extremely close to suppliers, especially in the Greater China region.
Pradeep Chakraborty 