Avnet 2000 Annual Report Download - page 6

Like a blacksmith forging a new tool from his molten
medium, so too, is Avnet forging a new company
from the raw materials of its past. No longer the parts-centric
distributor of its industrial age roots, Avnet is well on its way to
becoming a premier technology, marketing and services company of the
Web-enabled New Economy.
For more than 80 years, Avnet has embraced technology, evolving to meet the
opportunities it has brought to our work and our world. Founded on New York
City’s Radio Row in the 1920s when Charles Avnet began selling surplus
radio components to ham radio enthusiasts, by the time it was incorporated
in 1955, Avnet had become a distributor of choice for a wide range of elec-
tronic devices including connectors, electromechanical devices and tantalum
capacitors. Avnet continued to gain in stature through the semiconductor and
microprocessor revolutions of the 1960s and ‘70s. During the late 1980s and
throughout the 1990s, a tremendous upsurge in demand for computer products
and other electronics products created a strong environment in which to grow.
That demand, coupled with the desire of customers and suppliers to out-
source non-core functions like materials procurement, inventory management
and logistics, gave Avnet an opportunity to spread its wings. By offering
customers and suppliers a full complement of services such as finance,
inventory management, marketing and logistics, technical support and
engineering, Avnet added value to the components and newly added
computer products at the core of the Company’s business. Most recently, as
the Information Age opened borders and closed distances around the world,
Avnet expanded with its customers and suppliers as they globalized their
operations to seize opportunities and meet market demands.
Avnet has played a pivotal role in supplying and adding value to the electronic
components and computer products which helped fuel the growth of the
greatest technological innovations of the 20th century – radio, television,
communications devices, the transportation and consumer products industries,
aerospace and military technology and, of course, the personal computer.
What will the 21st century bring? More innovation. New services. Newer
technology, and therefore new products and services to sell. And Avnet will
be there, shaping and leading the markets in which it chooses to compete.
Avnet will not only survive, it will thrive.
The Information Age is opening
borders and closing distances
around the world. Avnet is
expanding with its customers
and suppliers as they continue
to globalize their operations to
seize opportunities and meet
market demands.
FORGING THE FUTURE
RESHAPING AVNET
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Avnet will not only survive, it will
thrive as an industry leader in the
21st century.