Rick Hamada履新安富利CEO，持续推进增值分销策略

Avnet's Rick Hamada talks transition

By Barbara Jorgensen

Set to assume CEO role in July, veteran vows to emphasize 'external focus'

Longtime Avnet Inc. executive Rick Hamada will take over as CEO of the top-ranked distributor in July.

Hamada, president and COO at the time of his promotion, talked to EBN Community editor Barbara Jorgensen about the transition to his new role and what to expect from the distribution market for the rest of the year.

EE Times/EBN: What are your short-terms plans as you prepare to become CEO in July?

Rick Hamada: First of all, based on the way we have rolled out with an announcement in February and the transition in July, for the first 100 days what I am trying to do during this pretransition period is set a new context for Rick. I have been here a long time, and I have been able to influence the strategies and decisions [at Avnet]. It is highly unlikely that anything dramatic [will happen] in the short term.

Now that the word is out, I am spending time listening to the team. You can count on continued emphasis of [Avnet's] core values-the respect, the integrity and customer focus. However, I don't want it to be business as usual.

How can we take the energy of this transition to look at new ideas? I want to make it clear that we are using this energy to create more opportunities in the marketplace. We are very market-led; we don't tell our partners in China, for example, what they should do.

So I want to use this transition time to get in touch [with the market] and make sure I listen. We will continue to see the themes of globalization and great people. I like to call this period "Rick 3G." Our strategy will always be profitable growth, and I expect to help Avnet extract more value for shareholders-to maintain our global footprint but make sure we respect regional values.

Under the topic of profitable growth, [CEO Roy Vallee] and I have had a division of labor; he has taken more of a lead in value-creating acquisition, and my focus has been on organic growth. I want to see us become more disciplined in the customer engagement process. We already have relationship management focus councils and a number of activities that we integrate [into Avnet's Voice of the Customer initiative].

As I have said, the best way to start growing is to stop shrinking. The [Avnet management] team has a lot of encouragement, but we are always working on being more disciplined. We are always asking if we are responsive enough. Are our cycle times too long? Are there other skills within our [core expertise] we can sell? If we can complement great organic growth with M&A, we have a bright future.

EET/EBN: How do you see distribution's role in the design chain changing?

Hamada: What I would tell you is [our] challenge in the design chain and supply chain is keeping them connected. That's been a trend [Avnet Electronics Marketing] has been dealing with for 10 years.

In regard to the design chain, we try to be clear with our suppliers: What parts do they want to cover with their direct resources? Where do they want to win the design? Which part of the customer base do they want us to cover? Do we bring a component to market, as opposed to a total solution that may include technologies with multiple vendors? If semiconductor companies have become more specialized, what do they want to do with that specialization? So we offer a range of solutions for a wide portfolio of customers.

X-fest was a step on that path [to providing solutions]. A lot of customers used to build around Xilinx, but we wanted to make sure we could focus on Xilinx's design and build the rest of the board, such as the products we offer in IP&E [interconnect, passives and electromechanical].

So call our strategy "X-fest with a twist." We see customers building around ARM solutions that are bringing smartphones to the table. Our customers are using a core set of technologies, building around an architecture and integrating software. We are able to bring an innovative solution to our customers and accelerate the market for our OEMs and ODMs; we help them take advantage of the latest and greatest.

EET/EBN: But that takes an investment in engineering resources. Engineers are a fixed cost in an organization that is sales-driven. How do you manage that?

Hamada: I would say we look at the ratio of our investment in salespeople to technical salespeople to FAEs all the time. For us, we know it takes a significant investment in technology resources-sometimes they are supplier-specific and other times more of a technology segment, say, microcontrollers and high-performance analog-and we can scale that over a portfolio of customers and supplier partners.

In the technology-specific arena, it's all about the critical mass-the allocation of resources and what degree of specialization we need-and our regional managers make these decisions.

EET/EBN: In Europe, you have EBV Elektronik designing chips.

Hamada: We think it is pretty innovative ... EBV is one of our top-performing businesses, and even with this team we are still looking for ways to grow. The EBV chip initiative is one of our best examples of profitable growth in action.

EET/EBN: Any last thoughts?

Hamada: What we are trying to do, in addition to this being a smooth and seamless transition, is to challenge our management team. You can count on continuity but not business as usual. [I want to see us] use the energy of this transition to keep an external focus-not always an internal focus-and I want to make sure I have my finger on the pulse [of the market] and keep the momentum going. We have to stay in sync with the marketplace but maintain our positive growth momentum.