FLEXIBILITY IS THE KEY TO WEATHERING THE STORM
As Soanar Australia celebrates 54 years of supplying reputable electronic products for its customers’ project needs, it highlights that its longevity and success have stemmed from its ability to evolve and keep pace with change.
The world has been transformed significantly since 1963 when George Soanes and A+R Transformers teamed up to establish Soanar (SOAN-AR). For those of us that can recall, the latter years of the last century were the heady days of electronics in Australasia. Servicing the thousands of manufacturers (both large and small) were hundreds of electronic component and parts distributors. Today there are noticeably fewer of both.
To remain globally competitive and be geographically closer to large markets, most suppliers and manufacturers have merged, moved offshore or disappeared altogether. Rob Ranieri, Soanar Australia’s general manager makes the analogy with a parable about the inflexible and flexible trees.
“As the winds of change become a gale force it’s often the inflexible tree with its solid trunk that gets uprooted while the tree with the more flexible trunk just sways with the wind and survives the storm,” he says. “We have spent the last year listening to new and existing customers and now service them better. We’ve gone back to basics with a simple proposition – good value, good service and good stock.”
To achieve success, Soanar has developed closer ties with vendors such as Mean Well and ELO, making it confident of achieving the aggressive sales targets it has set. Soanar is also in the process of looking for premises larger than the existing 25,000m2 warehouse in Rydalmere – from which customers can still collect their orders if they wish. “We are going to need additional space to house the additional stock,” says Ranieri.
A new website was launched last year to make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for and order online. For those still interested in speaking directly with a person the local call centre is available during business hours.
The new look and more flexible Soanar has taken the complexity out of doing business, focusing on their customers who are simply interested in ‘service and stock’.
Soanar Australia
1300 365 551
www.soanar.com