A customer is designing a sensor for the Space Shuttle that scans the craft’s tiles to make sure they’re all in place and undamaged. Another customer is designing a scanner that reads medicine and product labels for the visually impaired. Yet another is designing the next generation igloo cooler for transporting organs to hospitals for transplant procedures. These customers, and 20,000 others like them across North America, are small, emerging companies whose electronic components needs are served by Arrow Advantage.

These customers want, need and deserve everything Arrow has to offer – the industry’s broadest product portfolio, backed by superior service and expert technical support. But they do less business than the average Arrow customer and have different requirements. So, they turn to Arrow Advantage, a division of Arrow North American Components (NAC). As Colin Boyd, general manager, Arrow Advantage, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, puts it, “We bring big customer love to the small customer.” Plus, they do it in a way that both helps these smaller customers and is profitable for Arrow.

The total available market (TAM) represented by such small and emerging customers is $600 million. The portion of that market that distribution addresses is about $500 million.  Arrow Advantage customers range from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and contract manufacturers (CMs) to maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) companies, as well as universities and design firms. Often these customers need only a handful of components to produce a prototype of something they’re developing that is not yet in production. Some are working on unusual, cutting edge technologies. Boyd says, “Typically we deal with small shops with a few engineers who may need only five parts -- not five million, like some of Arrow’s bigger, more established customers. But we usually stay with these smaller customers and service their requirements as they move their designs into production. Then, as they grow and flourish, so do we.”

Arrow Advantage serves this large, diverse base of small and emerging companies from two call centers – one in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the other in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The two centers combined will handle more than a million calls by the end of this year. But Boyd emphasizes that Arrow Advantage is not a telemarketer. “We have a lead team that makes outbound calls to potential customers to see if there is a good opportunity for them and for Arrow to develop a relationship. But about 95 percent of what we do is driven by the activities of a sophisticated, expert, inside sales team that operates much the same way as any Arrow field branch. The difference is that we have more contact with more customers with much greater frequency. To do this cost efficiently, we have developed very sophisticated processes.”

Arrow Advantage supplements its technology and system sophistication with nearly 30 field sales people deployed in every major North American market, working out of local Arrow NAC offices. “We bring Arrow’s entire suite of offerings to the marketplace,” Boyd says. “We offer the entire line card, no restrictions. We offer our customers foundational supply chain services and will continue to enhance these services in the future. We have 170 employees working on the customer’s behalf. "

Since 2001, the business has been one of Arrow’s fastest growing units. Much of that growth comes from establishing relationships with customers who are in a start-up mode, because as they grow, so does their business with Arrow Advantage. Another growth opportunity comes from businesses that have either not engaged with Arrow before, or have not done business with Arrow for some time. Boyd says, however, that Arrow Advantage gets the most immediate and largest return from new customer engagements.

Boyd notes that the value-add Arrow Advantage offers customers is providing help and support that, because they are small, they might not get anywhere else. Ideally, these customers don’t stay small forever, and as they grow and become more successful, they tend to keep their relationship with Arrow because of the help they have received along the way. Boyd notes, “That works extremely well for them and for us.”