By Per Henricsson, Elektroniktidningen The listed company ElektronikGruppen beats its own path, sandwiched between global giants with their economies of scale, and small niche distributors with their advanced technological expertise. Starting out as a local distributor of standard products, the company has now become a multi-regional service company for niche products. These days, volume production has left Sweden altogether, with much of mid-volume production going the same way in the last recession. How should a distributor deal with these changes? "At ElektronikGruppen we decided to take the plunge and instead of just being a standard distributor offering standard products, we largely turned ourselves into a service company giving customers what they want to buy," says Fredrik Celsing, head of EG Electronics for five years, and also appointed President and CEO of ElektronikGruppen last year. "We work hard to help our customers choose the right products, on the basis of our expertise and their needs. Then we can help them modify the product and make the purchase." An important part of the strategy involves the company obtaining global exclusivity for the brands it represents. The exclusivity is not usually linked to a country or region, but is instead based on applications. These applications include vehicles and telecommunications. We had to work at it, but the Asian market now accounts for about 40% of sales at EG Electronics." Just under half of this figure comes from Chinese customers, primarily in telecom and the automotive industry. "Our expertise is valued and appreciated by the larger customers, with more challenging requirements. They come from nowhere, grow like wildfire, and are willing to pay for help. Prices in general are actually higher there than here." The plan now is to use the winning formula in India too. EG Electronics set up an office in Bangalore six months ago. There are three people working there at present, and the intention is to build up the workforce as quickly as possible. "Our route is clear. We have changed from being a local distributor of standard products to become a multi-regional distributor of niche products." To read the full article, visit the Elektroniktidningen website