The combined organisation will be led by Mario Orlandi, pictured, currently president of Silica. "This is an opportunity to extend our offerings and our customer base at the same time. As we operate in a competitive market environment, where speed of execution and expertise are king, we leverage the growth scalability of a bigger sales force while keeping the technical focus of specialist distribution."
The move is said to be a logical progression as both companies already share back end facilities. The two already share a sales force in Austria, Switzerland and Iberia and the move extends this to the EMEA region. However, demand creation activities, technical marketing and application support will remain separate.
Miguel Fernandez, president of Avnet EM EMEA, added: "Making Silica and Avnet Memec one company across Europe with two distinctive demand creation forces will help us drive scale and focus for many exclusive manufacturer relationships."
