element14 awarded International Headquarters (IHQ) status in Singapore
New status marks a key milestone in the company’s history in the Asia Pacific region
Singapore, 14 April, 2011 – element14 (formerly Farnell), the industry’s first business to fuse commerce and community, supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals worldwide, today announced the next milestone in its strategy to strengthen its leadership position in the Asia Pacific region and continue to drive its growing business from Singapore. The company’s Singapore operations have been awarded International Headquarters (IHQ) status by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).
Salman Syed, Regional Head, Asia Pacific, element14 said, “We are pleased to receive the IHQ recognition from EDB. The decision to base our Asia Pacific hub office, Regional Distribution Centre and global online commerce operations in Singapore was borne out of our vision to be the preferred global partner for the electronics design industry, and at the same time provide relevant local knowledge and expertise to our customers.”
element14 first set up base in Singapore 15 years ago as Farnell, part of the global Premier Farnell group; since then the company has grown significantly and continues to contribute to Singapore’s development as a global leader in technology and innovation. element14 centralises its business planning, controls and operational management for the Asia Pacific region out of its Singapore headquarters. Its state-of-the-art Regional Distribution Centre in Singapore has doubled its product inventory over the past year to offer the broadest range of design centric products stocked in Asia Pacific. element14’s comprehensive product portfolio includes more than 130,000 products from thousands of suppliers. Leading suppliers include Texas Instruments, Molex, Tyco Electronics, Analog Devices, Microchip, Freescale, Vishay, International Rectifier, ON Semiconductor, Kemet, National Semiconductor, Fluke, Fairchild, NXP, Littelfuse, TDK-EPC, Belden, and ST Microelectronics, to name a few. Within Asia Pacific next day delivery is provided to over 300 destinations.
To strengthen its focus in supporting electronic design engineering and maintenance, repair and operations in Asia Pacific, the group’s global eCommerce and Social Marketing team that drives its dynamic user experience and functionalities of its unique fusion of commerce and community platform is led from its Singapore office. In addition, element14 has also increased its Technical Support and Customer Service workforce to sustain its regional expansion of 24/7 customer service and 24/5 online technical support. The element14 customer service staff currently handles local language support in English, Mandarin, Thai and Korean.
The establishment of such facilities and value-added services clearly illustrate Singapore’s growing importance as a leading R&D and electronics services hub and underscores element14’s position as a leader among electronic component distributors in Asia Pacific.
“We invest significantly in developing our people, our business operations and communities, as well as technologies to support our aggressive growth strategy and continued commitment to Singapore’s development as a leading innovation hub. Our entire business model is geared towards multi-channel and high-service commitment to our customers in the Asia Pacific region. element14 is well-known for driving a new paradigm of collaboration within the electronics design space, and this augurs well with the planned developments of Singapore’s electronics services sector and our continued commitment and growth strategy for our business in the region,” added Syed.
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Media Contacts:
Christina Loh / Eileen Sim Communications element14 Asia Pacific Tel: +65 6788 0300 Email: cloh@element14.com / esim@element14.com | Agency Contacts : Karun Arya / Choon Hong Lim Text100 Global Public Relations Tel: +65 6603 9000 Email: element14@text100.com.sg |
About element14
element14 offers more than 130,000 products for next-day delivery for most cities in Asia Pacific from its three distribution hubs located in Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney. The company offers 24/7 telephone support for customers, 24/5 online technical support, and catalogue sales, with a hassle-free return policy.
In Singapore, please visit http://sg.element14.com/. This eCommerce site is integrated with the Group’s global online Community portal (www.element14.com).
Worldwide, element14 is the first collaborative community, research portal and eCommerce website for design engineers and electronics enthusiasts. The website provides product data, design tools, technology information and top brand components to seamlessly facilitate the design process; users can consult industry experts and collaborate with peers around the globe. element14 online Community is sponsored by Premier Farnell plc (LSE: pfl).
About Premier Farnell
Premier Farnell plc is leading the way in the high service, multi-channel provision of essential products, information, software and technology solutions to electronic design engineers, maintenance and repair engineers and purchasing professionals globally. Its differentiated proposition includes 29 local language transactional websites, and the critically important element14 ecommunity for design engineers – an industry first (www.element14.com). With sales last year of £990.8m and underlying profits of £93.3m the Group distributes its comprehensive portfolio of products and services throughout Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, supported by a global supply chain of over 3,500 suppliers and an inventory profile developed to anticipate and meet its customers’ needs. Recently awarded Platinum status by the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index the business takes its CSR commitments very seriously.
While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognises the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalise its model accordingly, trading locally under different brand names. Its primary electronics businesses trade as Farnell in Europe, Newark in the US, Canada and Mexico and Farnell Newark in Brazil. Across Asia Pacific the business trades as element14.
Key facts
- Operations in 35 different countries
- 4,100 employees
- Over 2 million customer contacts in 156 industries
- Over 3,500 leading suppliers
- Over 400,000 products stocked with access to over four million more on demand
- Global leader in legislation RoHS, WEEE, REACH
For more information, please visit www.premierfarnell.com
