QWhat are your key responsibilities?
ATo think about the supply chain and the way we plan, source, make, and deliver. That naturally and ultimately includes everything related to making deliveries,
integration of our cable and connector assembly facilities,
our programming facilities, and then all of our warehousing facilities on a global basis. I oversee our corporate operational excellence program and a group called Avnet
Velocity, through which we sell supply chain services to our
supplier customer base.
QWhat skill sets do you draw on most heavily in your job?
AI spent my first 15 years in business in manufactur- ing, working for the big aerospace companies. I have
been in distribution for 17 years. I really got to broaden my
horizons while working at Memec [an electronic components distributor acquired by Avnet in 2005] because I
started out running operations and eventually, as Memec
went global, I became responsible for our global operations. Then, I moved into managing all parts of our supply
chain and then, eventually, into being the president in the
Americas, where I ran all the sales and marketing. I have
been both a line and a staff guy.
I think one of the main skills that I brought with me
when I moved from a sales-facing or customer-facing role
back into this logistics role is an understanding of how our
own logistics challenges affect the customer. The first question I always ask is: How is this affecting the customer,
either positively or negatively?
QWhat are some of the biggest changes in logistics you’ve seen over your career?
AThe two biggest changes, I think, have been changing customer expectations and what I call a “war for talent.” Regarding the first, changing customer expectations, it
used to be that if you got an order and you told the customer
they’d get it in a week, they would be OK with that. Now, they
expect things to happen overnight. We are in the Internet age.
With that, the challenge for us in logistics is, How do we get
that profitable proximity? How do we get close enough to
satisfy the customer while still being able to have a logistics
infrastructure that is supportable and cost-effective?
As to the war for talent, we are now expecting our logistics leaders to be a lot more strategic and to have a broader set of experiences. We want them to be knowledgeable,
for instance, in how you set up logistics operations in
emerging markets. We want them to know how you deal
with different cultures, different laws, and different export
and import rules.
QHow about the converse? Can you point to anything that has remained constant over the years?
AThe main thing that hasn’t changed is that people are the key differentiator. Just about any company can go
buy the latest conveyance, the latest WMS system, or the latest AS/RS and integrate it. The differentiator is how well
your people are integrated into your operations.
We are very focused on employee engagement at Avnet
because we believe if our employees are fairly paid, continue to be educated, are focused on doing their job, and have
the tools to do that, that will translate to delighted cus-
