New Age Electronics to Host Eighth Annual Retail Dealer Summit in Hollywood

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Fred Towns On The New Age Of SYNNEX

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President marks partnership’s 10th anniversary

TWICE.com
ALAN WOLF
APR 30, 2018

It’s been 10 years since Synnex, the global supply-chain resource, acquired IT and CE distributor New Age Electronics from co-founders Adam Carrrol and Lee Perlman in a $54 million cash deal.

Within three years, former Panasonic exec and New Age senior VP Fred Towns succeeded Carrol as president, and the rest, as they say, is history.

TWICE caught up with Towns on the anniversary of the acquisition, to discuss the changes that the decade has wrought, the change in technologies to come, and the Synnex-New Age synergy.

TWICE: What brought Synnex to New Age?

At the time, our product mix was more on the IT side. The digital bridge was spreading; more products were becoming digitized; and companies were beginning to downsize their facilities, let their employees work from home or bring their devices to work.

Synnex looked at the marketplace trends and emerging digital platform, and saw an opportunity in retail for road-warrior equipment. They had a small retail business, but we were already providing a high level of service to large- and medium-sized retailers as well as mom-and-pops.

They ramped up very quickly after the acquisition. Remote working and the home office changed everything.

TWICE: What did Synnex bring to the party?

They are really good at capturing data. They had open-to-buy horsepower and could extend credit to customers. They also had relationships with the same vendors we did, like HP and Canon, except their business was on the commercial side, and much larger. It made all the relationships stronger.

In addition, there were many categories we didn’t have access to at the time, like peripherals, printing and accessories. It opened up a plethora of opportunities for us.

Conversely, we had consumer products that could lend themselves to the enterprise side, as road warriors began asking for thinner, lighter and more stylish devices.

TWICE: How have work-from-home trends evolved since then?

Today median incomes are up; you have both homeowners working out of the house, and work hours are changing radically. So opportunities in home automation are expanding, including voice- and whole-home control.

Remember when remote car starters were considered futuristic? Now you can control your entire home without leaving your desk — lighting, thermostat, music. The conveniences are so much more powerful.

Towns, a music lover, jams with former Eagles lead guitarist and “Hotel California” writer Don Felder at a New Age CES event.

TWICE: What advice do you have for brick-and-mortar retailers?

You need to build out new reasons for shoppers to visit you, because if you don’t evolve, you will die. The last 10 years has proven that if you didn’t develop a multichannel strategy, you went out like the dinosaurs. Now, with a virtual “endless aisle” of inventory, you never have to say no to your customers.

TWICE: Your track record shows a knack for sniffing out new trends. What’s your secret?

It’s the best part of the job, looking for the new, the exciting and the invigorating. You have to love tech and you have to listen; you learn a lot by listening. I learn from my customers and my teams. They’ll come back and say, “You have to see this,” or, “What do you think about that?”

Towns leads the discussion at a New Age Dealer Summit.

Then I consider how it could play into our business — whether it fits into our model or whether our model has to adjust.

And if you see something great and your vendor partner isn’t doing it, you go to them and say, “What are you doing about that?”

TWICE: What do you think the next 10 years will hold for New Age and Synnex?

Right now, things are very positive in the U.S., and there’s a lot of excitement out there over technologies that used to be “Star Trek” tech. If tariffs challenge that, I hope the leadership makes the right decisions and works it out.

But looking out over the next 10 years, bandwidth, transportation, healthcare and education will all radically change, whether it’s the impact of 5G, augmented reality or some new smart device.

Regardless, we’ll be there as a company with the tools to meet all those challenges and new directions for consumers and business.

BY ALAN WOLF

Is It Soup Yet? Distributors Say Smart Home Is Just About Ready

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For the generation that grew up on The Jetsons, and their progency born with digital device in hand, smart home should be a no brainer; they should get it.

But just like with most new consumer technologies, the early-round mix of complexity, competing platforms, interoperability and price created a barrier to entry that would make President Trump proud.

Yet according to distributors entrusted with delivering connected product to retailers and installers — and instructing them on the use and marketing of same — smart home is a concept whose time has come.

Ingram Micro, for one, is “bullish on the smart-home space,” said Alexandra Harding, director of vendor management, consumer technology solutions, for the 800-pound gorilla of two-step tech distribution. “Consumer adoption is ramping up as they become more familiar and comfortable with the products.”

Harding credits manufacturers who are helping the cause by educating consumers, which demystifies the products and focuses attention on their ease of use.

For Colin Blair, Tech Data’sVP of big data and analytics/the Internet of Things, the growing potpourri of smart products is also driving acceptance. “The smart-home category continues to expand as the number of smart devices in the home continues to grow,” he noted. “Smart-home hubs are connecting to more things in the home, while mobile phone apps are giving remote access to devices in the home. Smart thermostats, security cameras and advanced lighting are leading the charge, while door locks, garage openers and robotic vacuums are not far behind.”

Seth Evenson, customer experience management director at AVAD, argued that the advent of do-able DIY is helping smart home reach critical mass. “Consumer interest in smart homes continues to rise due to increased mid-market product introductions from brands like Nest, Lutron and Ring,” he told TWICE. “There are more smart-home solutions available than ever before, allowing the smart home to be within reach of more consumers.”

The same holds true within the custom-install channel — to a point. “We are seeing more jobs integrate with many DIY solutions to create a full, cohesive ecosystem,” Evanson continued, “but custom installation is still driven strongly by the control infrastructure of the job. Many brands, such as RTI, are ensuring that they make it easy for consumers to take advantage of these solutions while getting the true benefits of complete automation.”

Curt Hayes, president/chief financial officer, Capitol, concurred. “Consumers are getting on board with the smart-home category, even if they don’t always know the nomenclature,” he said. “Whole-house A/V and controls are coming into vogue for nearly all income levels, thanks to the growing relevance of the IoT.”

Fred Towns, president of New Age Electronics, believes consumer expectations for more capable and better-connected devices, especially in security, is making smart home one of the hottest categories this year, leaving dealers scrambling to keep items in stock. “Device pairing is getting easier: it takes just a simple set of steps to get you up and working, and plenty of good tools are online to support that,” he said. “With Wi-Fi and cellular-enabled monitoring anywhere, anytime, consumers are embracing control at the touch of a button both inside and outside of the home. People are more comfortable and excited about being connected.”

Dennis Holzer, executive director of PowerHouse Alliance, the distributor consortium, also gives props to those helpful, disembodied assistants from Amazon and Google. “Consumers aren’t just tiptoeing into smart home; demand for this category is exploding,” he observed. “With the convergence of networking and security with audio, video and home automation, paired with voice control [via] virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, smart-home adoption is growing substantially.”

But to Trevor May, executive director, vendor management at D&H Distributing, the best is yet to come. “The smart-home category continues to grow, with more solutions being adopted by a greater number of consumers.” However, he added, the category is only in its infancy, and is poised for near triple growth by 2021.

Likewise, Warren Chaiken, president/CEO of Almo, sees the category’s development as an evolutionary process, particularly as it pertains to major appliances, which many regard as the smart-home’s true Trojan horse. “The current ability to remotely preheat your oven or run a self-diagnostic check on a washing machine showing an error code is creating a lot of consumer interest, but it is following the standard new-technology adoption pattern,” he said “For Boomer and Gen X buyers, smart-home appliances are a luxury and purchased by traditional early adopters and higher-income households. Millenials want it but these features are offered mostly in top-of-line models, so only the more affluent are purchasing.”

But by the time Gen Z is ready to buy their first homes, “Smart features will be expected and will have achieved mass-market status with lower price points,” Chaiken said.

Ultimately, it all comes down to the end-user, and perceived utility. As Climatic Home Productspresident Doug Allen said succintly, “Consumers are looking for connected appliances that will help simplify and improve their lifestyle.”

Retail’s Role in Expanding the Connected Home Ecosystem

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It’s an exciting time for the connected home category as sales move beyond entry-level products to more advanced offerings that work together to form a connected ecosystem. Within this ecosystem, products are creating a sense of modernization for consumers—devices are talking back to users and communicating with other devices to make homes more efficient and comfortable than before. This shift translates into big opportunities for retailers, who should be planning for how to consultatively sell products that interconnect, as the smart home category continues to grow. Retailers who select core products that work together and add in the right peripherals can help consumers create a true connected ecosystem. Due to these new possibilities with technology, now is the time for retailers to map out a plan for gaining connected-home market share.

 

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New Age Summit Encore To Be Held At … The Encore

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New Age Electronics, the national CE and gaming distributor, will reprise its annual Retail Dealer Summit this summer at the Encore Las Vegas.

Now in its seventh year, the three-day conference features product exhibitions, educational sessions and keynote speakers, as well as networking opportunities with top retailers and vendors, and presentations by industry experts.

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Distributors Keep Movin’ And A-Groovin’

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It’s certainly not easy staying on top of the mad rush of innovation in the tech and appliance industries, which keeps the nation’s distributors on their toes.

As Helge Fisher, executive director of the Catalyst AV distributor group noted, “Our 11-member network never stops improving. They have a total of 24 locations and serve more than 16,000 professional integration specialists, [with] new appointments, expos, training seminars, grand openings and new product lines constantly happening.”

Among the latest Catalyst news: mid-Atlantic member Tech Source/NuTech Group has brought in industry veteran Chris Clements as a manufacturer’s rep.

Clements came to the Montgomeryville, Pa.-based business from Judge Technology Solutions, a commercial integrator, where he served as an account executive for the past five years, and before that spent 10 years as an account manager and sales engineer at World Wide Stereo, the acclaimed Pennsylvania-area A/V and custom-installation specialty chain.

 

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10 Ways Distributors Can Affect The Retail Bottom Line

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As tech and appliance retailing grows ever more challenging, the role of the distributor as a warehouse, fulfillment service, educator and business advisor continues to expand. Here are 10 ways the two-step channel is helping its retail customers be more successful by boosting their bottom lines.

1. Offering customers a deep basket of services, including bundling, merchandising, extended assortment, forecasting, supply chain management, concierge services and electronic software downloads. — Fred Towns, president, New Age Electronics

2. Providing a series of multi-market trade events where customers can get hands-on knowledge of the latest innovations from 50 to 100 manufacturers at a time. — Tim Billing, vendor management and purchasing VP, D&H Distributing

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Hey Dealers: The Smart Home Is Knocking And Distributors Can Let It In

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Let’s face it, any dealer worth his or her weight in TVs and appliances knows that the connected home is coming, if it’s not already here. And just like the New York Lottery, you gotta be in it to win it.

Problem is, like any emerging technology it’s an untamed mess of incongruous standards and platforms, and placing your bets too soon could prove deleterious.

Enter the distributor, the champion of virtual inventory, just-in-time delivery and e-commerce fulfillment, who is ready and willing to sort things out. Just as they have done with new PC operating systems, A/V technologies and assorted protocols, these manufacturer intermediaries can help guide retailers through the IoT maze in order to avoid the pitfalls of a nascent category.

TWICE contacted a host of leading two-step lights to shed some illumination on the pathway. Here’s what they had to say.

Dennis Holzer, executive director, PowerHouse Alliance: Today, consumers are demanding products they can control with their smartphones or tablets, so almost every day new products enter the smart-home market.

It’s an ongoing priority for the PowerHouse Alliance to seek out new relevant products and add them, as we have recently done with Zigen, Hikvision and KEF. We continue to bring on new lines across the smart home and other categories, and as we bring them on, we equip dealers with the knowledge to sell and install those products.

Every once in a while a product innovation causes a ripple effect in determining the next generation of products across the industry. Voice control is the latest technology proving to be a game-changer for CI dealers. My advice to dealers is to embrace voice control and ensure you have the right product mix, knowledge and expertise to sell and install these control systems and compatible devices.

I also encourage dealers to offer networking products to build a strong and reliable network for customers that can handle the number of smart devices they have. Both of these categories will be critical to dealers’ success this year and in the future.

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Subscriptions Are Key to Unlocking Smart Home’s Spoils

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After several years of head-spinning innovation and much pondering, retailers and manufacturers are starting to make sense of the smart home. Much of it revolves around monetizing the business through a recurring revenue model and the advent of voice control — most notably through Amazon’s Alexa artificial intelligence technology — as a common and consumer-friendly IoT platform.

That smart-home is on the minds of merchants is an understatement, as the subject consumed much of TWICE’s Executive Retail Roundtable this year. In this last of a series of panel excerpts, top industry retailers, distributors, buying group execs (and one leading industry analyst) tackle the connected-home category.

On the need for a new revenue model

Dave Workman, ProSource: The biggest thing, and one of our key initiatives this year, is to basically bring a recurring revenue model into this product.

TWICE: Will this be with a third-party partner?

Workman: This is a combination of everything. The key for the customer, whether it’s a very simple system or an elaborate system is there are a lot of diagnostics that can go on remotely. You can’t afford to roll a truck for somebody to put in a $500 Dropcam or repair a Nest thermostat if something goes wrong, and so there are services obviously, and we are working to try to combine it.

The industry will resemble the security industry where you have a low frontend ticket and ideally you get some sort of recurring revenue piece that comes into the model that allows the system to continue to operate. The key is how you develop the quality of the service that goes around that. It can’t just be in the event of a crisis we’ll be here. You have to bring value that customers see.

It has to be rebooted, and there are so many things that people don’t realize, like you have to unplug your cable box occasionally because it builds up resistive qualities, and all of that stuff that people just don’t realize. Those things can all be automated if done correctly. The companies are all working on it, and then there are call center tech supports like PlumChoice and some of the other names that you know. We are pretty excited, and we’re getting close to the finish line on the project.

The TWICE Executive Retail Roundtable. Standing from left: Alan Wolf, TWICE; Neal Martinelli, HSN; Mary Campbell, D&H Distributing; Dave Workman, ProSource; Fred Towns, New Age Electronics; Dene Rogers, RadioShack. Seated from left: Tom Hickman, Nationwide; Laura Orvidas, Amazon; Ryan Ciovacco, Sears Holdings; Steve Baker, The NPD Group [Read more…]

New Age Electronics Expands Home Appliance Offering through Agreement with RAYCOP

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New Age Electronics, a leading distributor of consumer electronics and gaming products and services and a division of SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), announced today that it has signed an agreement with RAYCOP, a leading consumer health product manufacturer, to distribute its top-selling allergen vacuums to the North American retail channel. The agreement expands New Age Electronics’ home appliance offering and makes the RAYCOP RS2 and RAYCOP LITE products available to its network of retail customers. In Canada, RAYCOP is available through SYNNEX Canada Limited’s consumer electronics group. In addition, the agreement has applications in the commercial channel in areas such as hospitality in both the US and Canada.

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