Publication date: 30 April 2007
Managing NBOs in a Global Marketplace and a Long Tail World will be the topic of panel discussion during the Electronic Distribution Show and Conference in Las Vegas, with panelists from Panasonic and Digi-Key discussing their experiences and practices in sampling, demand creation, and tracking new business opportunities with POS specialist Mike Budde of Budde Marketing and online design win tracking solutions provider Sunil Grover of Beganto.
The session will be held on Tuesday May 15th at 1 PM in the Paris Hotel’s Versailles Ballroom.
The Long Tail is the term applied when the total volume of low popularity items exceeds the volume of high popularity items, and reflects the importance in the electronics OEM of catalog distribution and its co-existence with traditional component distributors offering in depth inventory and technical support as well as with factory-direct OEM sales.
The phrase is generally credited to Chris Anderson, whose 2004 Wired magazine article described the effects of the long tail on current and future business models.
As summarized on Wikipedia.com, Anderson’s thesis it that products in low demand or with low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the big sellers, particularly in large brick-and-mortar and Internet enterprises.
“You have to understand the phenomenon to tap into it effectively,” Beganto’s Grover says, “and one focus of our panel will be to analyze the phenomenon in terms of business models in the electronic distribution channel.
The Beganto model, with its closed loop feedback mechanism for sample tracking throughout the supply chain, is one such model. The EDS program provides an opportunity to review it in contrast to other options. ”
“As the old saying teaches, nothing happens until somebody sells something,” says Mike Budde, “and when they do, they want to get paid for creating the sale, even if the point of specification, the point of purchase, and the point of manufacture are in different territories or even different continents.
That’s what put POS (Point of Sale) reporting and tracking design wins to the point of manufacture on the two sides of the same coin.”
Behind the program is the recognition by the panel of the importance of managing demand creation, with all participants agreeing that the industry needs to be in dialogue at all levels about the kinds of platforms needed to facilitate communication throughout the supply chain and throughout the world.
This entails recognizing that distributors like Digi-Key have different roles from distributors like Avnet, and that manufacturers have to be on top of the customers distributors cover and customers they cover themselves.
Karen Prince-Ferron , Distribution Manager of Panasonic Industrial, is expected to represent her company on the panel, and a senior Digi-Key participant will be announced.
The one-hour discussion will include questions from and dialogue with those in attendance. Admission to the workshop program is free, but access to the venue in the Versailles Ballroom is limited to those with EDS badges.
More information is available from Sunil Grover at Beganto, Inc., 48521 Warm Springs Blvd., #306, Fremont CA 95439, phone 510.687.5101, fax 510.226.6188, email info@beganto.com, or from Mike Budde at Budde Marketing Systems, 13231 W. 143rd St., # 102, Homer Glen, IL 60491, 708 301 2111, fax 708 301 2138, email marketing@buddemarketing.com
http://www.digikey.com
http://www.beganto.com
http://www.buddemarketing.com
