Anglia Components’ CEO, Steve Rawlins, talks trends, environmental issues, ecommerce and the practical benefits of partnering with a UK-based distributor.
Q: What are the key market trends for 2024?
A: We are in a period of over-supply: a reaction to component shortages of two years ago where many customers sought alternative suppliers. Some customers will opt for the spot market rather than placing scheduled orders. This means weak demand and limited industry growth. As inventory in the supply chain reduces, lead times will likely lengthen again, so buyers should work with suppliers, providing forecasts and placing forward orders to guarantee parts needed.
We expect a flat market until H2 2024, when we will revise budgets. Anglia is targeting double digit growth—well above the industry average—based on new initiatives, such as Anglia Live Europe and by supporting the ‘electrification of everything’ movement.
Q: How is Anglia addressing concerns regarding the environmental impact of supply chains?
A: A recent action is a switch to plain, recyclable packaging and sealing tape, plus standard size options. This reduces infill packaging and waste. Customers can even reuse boxes since they are un-branded. Recently, we consolidated our logistic services with FedEx, which reduces the number of vehicles transporting goods from our distribution centre to sorting facilities.
Anglia is also looking to limit our climate impact with initiatives such as smart automation of lighting/heating, becoming paperless and encouraging greener transport methods for employees with cycle storage facilities and electric vehicle charging points. We also offset CO₂ emissions through trusted local and global programmes.
Q: How is Anglia Live developing?
A: Anglia Live was launched in 2012. We encourage all customers to use it alongside the personal service we are renowned for. Anglia Live information is accurate in real-time with inventory, pricing and visibility of future deliveries. Anglia Live offers free delivery and value-added services including broken pack sizes with lot traceability via our small quantity production-ready Ready Reel service. Other services include BOM+ which provides a fully-costed BOM in less than two minutes.
In other exciting news Anglia Live has opened for European customers. Anglia Live Europe offers a standard two-day service from its UK distribution centre, DDP (delivered duty paid) shipped by FedEx through its Paris hub, with invoicing available in multiple currencies.
Q: What advantages can purchasing professionals gain from using a British distributor?
A: Reshoring and near-shoring are much more popular now, because of uncertainty in the supply chain. This is one of the reasons we were encouraged—by customers and suppliers—to move ahead with the Anglia Live ecommerce platform in Europe. Our UK-based inventory provides not only security, but also convenience, and our customers are telling us we are out-performing household names regarding speed of delivery. Also, going back to sustainability, shipping goods from our UK distribution centre to mainland Europe customers produces seven times less CO₂ versus shipping the same goods from the US.