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Glenn Jarrett, head of marketing at RS Components, talks to Steve Rogerson in our series of interviews for CIEonline. As RS Components’ head of electronics marketing, Glenn Jarrett leads the team responsible for shaping the company’s vision for a virtual online environment for its electronics customers. His marketing role encompasses taking the RS portfolio of 260,000 electronic components to its 1.5 million customers around the world.
He joined RS Components in April 2009 from Abacus Group where he was marketing director for semiconductors and electromechanical products. Previously, he was country director of Memec Unique, European product manager at Memec, UK product manager at Ambar Components and held a range of technical sales and marketing roles at Kudos Thame.
Jarrett holds a 2:1 in electronic engineering from Sussex University, and has two years’ electronics design experience. His hobbies and interests include football, mountain-biking, photography and travel.
1. You’ve recently been named Crydon’s global distributor of the year and DesignSpark PCB has just won a product introduction of the year award. How important are awards such as these to a company?
It is very easy to ignore awards if you don’t win them and make a big fuss if you do. But they are important because they offer a level of recognition. It is very rewarding to have something from a supplier and it makes good PR.
The Design Spark PCB award was more exciting because that was voted for by our customers and that feels more real. Something that comes from the voice of the customers is always worth listening to.
We have a fair amount of razzamatazz internally when we win an award and we put them on display. If we win a UK award, we move it around between our premises in Oxford, Corby and Nuneaton.
2. In what ways do you see the electronics design industry changing?
Over the past 20 years, the advent of the internet has changed everything beyond everyone’s imagination. And as it matures, we are seeing further changes. We are now seeing fragmentation. There are not the engineering stalwarts or mega companies any more, you know the large multinationals with engineering departments that can do every bit of the design. The web has allowed specialist design centres that operate as contracted third parties and can work on just part of a design. People around the globe can work on the same design.
This is more challenging for distributors because you can no longer go to one department. It is a multi-site approach and difficult to track all the processes and departments. We like to visit one customer and find out everything but now we can’t do that.
Engineers now enjoy a certain amount of anonymity. They can do everything on the web. They can research, they can simulate, all without face-to-face meetings or contacts with suppliers. Mechanical design is also going that way. We are seeing electronic and mechanical design being done together. Smartphones and tablet computers are good examples. The case and interface are driving factors of the electronic design rather than producing an electronic circuit and then deciding how you are going to box it up.
3. Earlier this year you opened a new office in Malaysia and you’ve just expanded your warehouse in Shanghai. Is this part of a continuing trend to grow more in the Far East than in Europe?
Yes it is. Absolutely. If you look at the worldwide electronics industry, the Far East and in particular China is going to become one of the cornerstones of our industry. Design is more often in China now and in surrounding countries. This is becoming the most important area for our industry.
We are not scaling back our efforts in Europe though. I don’t think Europe will suffer. We are investing huge amounts in supporting the design efforts that are still in Europe. We see the real growth though in developing customers in the Far East. That said, we are seeing growth in Germany and are putting investment in Europe.
4. What is the most interesting thing, person or place you have photographed, and why?
Lake Garda in Italy. It is such a beautiful area. It is an amazing place. The atmosphere is fantastic and the lake is stunning. I have hundreds of photos of that and Sirmione, an ancient Italian village on an outcrop of rock jutting into the lake. The buildings, the architecture, the sense of history you get there. And when you view it from the water, it is even more beautiful. I was there three years ago and would love to go back.
5. You have been quite excited about the way DesignSpark has taken off. But where does it go from here?
We are asking our DesignSpark members to get their views and comments and preferences. One thing we will do shortly is set up a question-and-answer forum for DesignSpark PCB. This has become a dominant element for the members of DesignSpark, so we are going to have a proper structured forum.
We will have an education portal for student engineers and graduates so they can do tutorials, research and studies. It will also be for engineers looking for supplier-driven tutorials. We see it as a place to come for enhanced learning. We have discussed this with the user group and it has been warmly received.
We will also make amendments to the layout of the site to improve the customer experience.
