COLLABORATION IN THE HARDWARE COMPONENTS SPACE
Come together The hardware components space is facing challenging conditions, but history shows that working together in adversity leads to long-term success, as Iwona Zalewska, regional director for UK & Ireland, DRAM Business Manager, EMEA Region, Kingston Technology, explains.
Vendors in the hardware components space, especially DRAM and SSD, continue to ride the choppy waters of rapidly altering market dynamics, changing customer expectations and persistent supply-chain challenges. Market forecasts, and our own experiences, indicate that the situation is unlikely to change soon. The rapid increase in data centre demand to serve AI deployments is consuming not only massive volumes of DRAM, NAND and storage devices, but of high-bandwidth solutions standard components. Supplies are being diverted, manufacturing capacity is limited and vendors face long lead times, all of which leaves the channel, and its customers, severely constrained and facing higher prices. Learning from experience This is not the first time in recent history that the IT sector has faced adversity. The 2008 financial crash saw partners of many years struggling to stay afloat as demand for components in the finance sector fell away sharply. And who needs reminding about the catastrophic impact of the Covid pandemic? What we learned during these events – how we managed these experiences, what we did to navigate a route forward and who we relied on – is valuable to tap into right now and we can draw solutions and devise strategies for the future. Our company has a motto: ‘Built on Commitment’. It reflects our pursuit of quality and reliability, but it also applies to
our approach to partners and customers. Like many vendors, we want to provide quality products and solutions alongside first-class service and support, but at no time is this more important than during testing trading periods like now. Our integrators and distributors expect us to plan ahead and manage allocation and inventory to minimise disruption to them. Over the past 18 months, Kingston has worked closely with distributors and integrators to improve forecasting visibility, share market intelligence and minimise the impact of allocation challenges. But alongside these efforts, there has been an additional need for agility and, above all, good communication.
Iwona Zalewska
kingston.com
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Communicating to improve understanding
The rapid increase in data centre demand to serve AI deployments is consuming not only massive volumes of DRAM, NAND and storage devices, but of high-bandwidth solutions standard components.
As the channel has been forced to adapt to more complex demands and tightened margins on commoditised parts, it has become incumbent on vendors to better understand their partners’ project pipelines, timelines and financial frameworks, including credit facilities. Increasing ASPs, managing stock and monitoring cash flow is a constant, daily battle for the entire industry. The only way to fully comprehend this is through dialogue. Whether it’s account reviews, monthly catch-up calls, support at industry events, sharing data or making regular visits, boosting communications with the channel allows vendors to gain real visibility into the commercial and
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