“Stable is good”
Avnet chairman and CEO Roy Vallee has spoken to HEXUS.channel to give his take on the current economic climate. “The environment is cautious but stable. Growth rates are below trend, so stable is good,” he said.
Asked how he sees the rest of the year panning out, Vallee was understandably reluctant to stick his neck out. “Until we figure out where the macroeconomics are going it is hard to predict the future,” he said.
“The worst may be over and the fear of a total meltdown is over but everyone is still waiting for more bad news. The bottom of this period could happen sometime this summer and the US general election in November will be viewed as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.”
Vallee believes Avnet is well positioned to ride out the current economic turbulence due to its value-add approach to distribution. “Pure play logistics is a cost game and we decided a couple of decades ago to focus on value-add,” he said.
“We recruit and certify resellers and offer training, such as VMWare certification. Our target segment is SMBs, with networking, storage, security, wireless technology, software and services featuring prominently.”
Vallee was speaking at the first European gathering of the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC), which exists to promote and publicise many of the world’s largest distributors.
