Digi-Key 'encouraged by growth'

Chris Beeson, executive vice president of sales and supply development, said it was continuing the transformation from what he called being 'Thief River Falls centric' to having local conversations with sales and engineering professionals. "Good things are happening," he claimed. "We've grown sales by more than 25% in the UK and are on the right path. But we continue to ask 'what more can we do?'. Talking to the growth in customer numbers, Beeson claimed 90% of the market is underserved or not served at all. "Engagement is key," he said. "There's makers and students; all of whom want to do their own thing. They are a community new to the industry and have been hard to support because the model wasn't there." Digi-Key is also looking at such issues as backroom support, IT, logistics and supply chain management. "We're also engaging with suppliers, because there's a lot of volatility in technology. We look to have deep inventories; that's OK if a product will be viable for 10 years, but what if its lifetime is only six months?"