Farnell element14 product news

Farnell UK

Established in Leeds in 1939, Farnell is today a world leading British distributor of electronic components. Their product offering includes electronic, electrical, industrial and maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products. Farnell UK is part of the Premier Farnell Group of companies and through Newark, the American based distributor, customers also have access to an extended product range. Newark is a leading distributor of electronic components with a presence in United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

Chairman: Valerie Gooding
Valerie Gooding CBE, succeeded Sir Peter Gershon as Chairman on June 14 2011, following his retirement at the Company’s AGM. Ms Gooding’s career as a global executive included 10 years as CEO of BUPA as well as having previously held the position of Director of Asia Pacific at British Airways. She is currently Non-Executive director at Standard Chartered plc and the BBC and was previously a non-executive director of J Sainsbury plc, Compass Group plc and BAA plc

CEO: Harriet Green
Harriet Green, the CEO of Farnell, was formerly Asia Pacific President for Arrow Electronics. She was appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2006. In 2007 Harriet Green was selected for the top honour in the International Stevie Awards for women in business for the category Best Executive in EMEA. (Award presented by Infiniti)

Farnell is offering over 480,000 stocked products from over 800 suppliers, the product range is available online 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The company is employing over 1200 people in more than 20 countries and trading in over 100 countries. Premier Farnell serves a global customer base of more than 2 million customers worldwide, the Group stocks in excess of 400,000 electronic products, has access to 4 million more and represents 3,500 manufacturer brands. Despite its global operation Farnell's headquarters remains in Leeds and most of the company's 800 employees come from the city.

Company History

• 1939: Founded in Leeds, UK by Alan Farnell and Arthur Woffenden
• 1966: listed on the London Stock Exchange with a turnover of £2 million
• 1980's international expansion by organic expansion and acquisitions
• 1990: reached a turnover of 200 million
• 1995: CPC (Combined Precision Components) was acquired
• 1996: Farnell Electronics acquired Premier Industrial Corporation for £1.85 billion and Premier Farnell is created
• 1997: Farnell Electronic Service sold
• 2001: Buch & Hickman acquired for £66 million
• 2007: Farnell won the CorpComms Award for 'the Best use of new media as part of a communication strategy'
• 2008: recognised as one of the top 50 places Where Women want to Work (The Times award)
• 2009: Celebrates 70 years in business and are awarded 'Distributor of the Year Award' (by Elektra)

Premier Farnell

Premier Farnell is a global organisation, formed in 1996, whose companies include Farnell, Newark, CPC, Premier Electronics, Farnell-Newark, MCM, Akron Brass and TPC Wire & Cable. Premier Farnell is a global, business-to-business, small order, high service distributor of electronic components and industrial products to the design, maintenance and engineering sectors.

The group is trading in over 100 countries across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific with operations in 24 countries and over 4000 employees. The group take their social responsibility seriously and has as a result become part of the FTSE4 Good Index of Corporate and Social Responsibility. They are also a Gold status member participating in the Business in The Community (BiTC) Corporate Responsibility Index - a group of over 800 UK companies who are committed to having a positive impact on the environment and society.

For the financial year ended 1st February 2009, the Group had recorded sales of £804.4 million and an operating profit of £85.4 million. Sales for the first quarter of its 2009 financial year were down by 15% compared to the same quarter in 2008.

Farnell's international customer base includes Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norcott Technologies, Europeanalog Devices, Molex and Fluke Corporation.

Present and Future

Farnell has successfully moved away from the traditional 'catalogue' electronic company they once were and have very much established themselves as a web business and a high service distributor. Today, Farnell Europe takes more than 50% of its orders via the web whilst the North America operation is behind with more than 20% of orders taken via the web. The website provides visitors with an easy to use part search facility helping them find exactly what they are looking for.

The company recently acquired CadSoft, a market leading developer and supplier of the CAD software EAGLE, which is in use by thousands of design engineers worldwide. Farnell has also produced a website called element 14 (www.element-14.com), which serves as an interface between Farnell and the design engineers that they support. It is an information portal and community forum built for electronic design engineers with product data, design tools and technical documentation. CEO, Harriet Green describes Element 14 as the 'Facebook for Engineers.' Farnell and other distributors need to respond to the demands of a new generation of design engineers who want web access to products, documentation and support.

Farnell is concerned that the UK is falling behind countries like China and India in the number of engineering graduates. With scholarships and other projects they are trying to encourage more young people to be engineers.

Contact

Farnell, Canal Road, Leeds, LS12 2TU, Phone: 08447 11 11 11, Fax: 08447 11 11 12,
e-mail: sales@farnell.co.uk, Web: www.farnell.co.uk

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