Guiding Today’s Ideas into Tomorrow’s Technology: Avnet

The Silicon Review

Technology’s next wonder is out there, somewhere. It may just be scribbles on a napkin right now, a possibility on paper, but tomorrow, it could change the world – with a little help from Avnet.

The low power wide area (LPWA) network is rapidly growing in popularity, thanks to its ability to support low-cost IoT applications. Billions of new devices will be created to provide complete IoT connectivity in sectors like utilities, smart cities, logistics, agriculture, manufacturing, and wearable. The mobile industry is quickly seizing this opportunity with Mobile IoT.

As a key technology enabler in LPWAN technologies, Avnet plays an integral role in the mobile IT marketplace. The company offers a wide range of robust offerings from leading ecosystem partners that are suitable for a host of mobile IoT applications, facilitating product design and slashing time to market for its customers.

Avnet designs and makes for start-ups – the technology dreamers poised to be the next big thing. And it supplies and delivers for the contract manufacturers and OEMs who need to stock shelves around the globe. The company’s culture was founded on new ideas and emerging technology and its engineers are on the front lines of innovation, supported by sales, supply-chain, design-chain and service teams with deep expertise – making Avnet the go-to guide for innovators who set the pace for technological change.

Changing Faster To Reach Further

If you think about it, radio was the start of the Information Age. The medium that connected people and stories, supported military intelligence and defense and brought music and entertainment into people’s living rooms. Today, Avnet helps to do all of that, and so much more, from the heart of the technology supply chain. But, it all began by inspiring a generation of tinkerers more than 95 years ago from Charles Avnet’s first little components shop on Manhattan’s Radio Row. Expansion boomed during WWII – and continues to this day – with Avnet on the leading edge of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Charles Avnet’s ambition and entrepreneurial spirit still guide the company forward. It thrives on smart ideas – big or small, time-tested or newly emerging. It’s kept us in the game for nearly a century and on the NYSE for more than five decades. It’s not just a philosophy. It’s a business model. Because every great idea sparks the embers of inspiration for the next century of visionaries and beyond.

As one of the world’s largest distributors of electronic components and embedded solutions, Avnet has always adapted to changing markets and needs. But with the recent acquisitions of Premier Farnell and Hackster.io, it’s bridging the worlds of makers and manufacturers like never before.

Today, Avnet can design, make, supply and deliver for customers of every size in every corner of the world – whether your product is still a notion on a napkin, in mass production or at any point in between. Avnet combines the agility needed to get to market first with nearly a century of close-knit relationships with technology’s most trusted global companies. Turning ideas that no one’s heard of into products everyone knows.

Doing Business, the Right Way

Since 1921, our strong values have guided how we operate and interact with our customers, suppliers and with each other. We believe that earning your trust is a privilege and doing the right thing is always the best course of action. Our Core Values, Code of Conduct and company policies reflect our commitment to doing business with integrity.

The values that drive our business and our people forward every day are:

Integrity: We mean what we say, we respect others and we do business the right way.

Empathy: We listen and see the world through the eyes of the customer.

Ingenuity: We find smart ways to make things work better and leverage technology in unique ways to solve our customers’ toughest challenges.

Collaboration: With each other, our customers and our suppliers, we put our heads together to get the job done.

Objectivity: We work with open minds and no bias – other than making our customers successful.

Know-how: Our technical and market expertise runs deep.

Clientele Testimonies

“Avnet Integrated Solutions is taking operational cost out of our business without reducing service levels. Our customers are getting the same highly engineered solution and they are able to leverage their buying power to get the best possible price through Avnet. Everyone wins and we were able to increase our focus on what we do best – advanced networking software solutions.”

- David Tipping, Vice President & General Manager Products, Ribbon Communications

“It’s a processor that is developed specifically for genomic analysis, something that makes it significantly better than any software-based solution."

- Pieter van Rooyen, CEO, Edico Genome

“With the Zynq solution, power is down, speed is up and [we get] less thermal management. It’s a win-win.”

- Daniel Rahardja, hardware engineer, Clarius Mobile Health.

Greet the Leader

William J. Amelio, CEO: William (Bill) J. Amelio was named Chief Executive Officer of Avnet in September 2016, where he has been a member of Avnet’s Board of Directors since 2014.

Amelio's experience includes serving as chief executive officer and president of CHC Group LTD, a global helicopter services provider; president and chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Limited; senior vice president/president for the Asia-Pacific/Japan region of Dell, Inc.; and leadership roles at NCR Corporation, Honeywell International, Inc., and IBM Corporation. Mr. Amelio also previously served on the Board of Directors of National Semiconductor. He holds a master's degree in management and is a Sloan Fellow of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mr. Amelio earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Lehigh University.