Digi-Key on Adapting to the Changing Industry Landscape, Part 2

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

To read Part 1 of this interview, click here.

The I-Connect007 editorial team recently spoke with Chris Beeson, executive vice president of global suppliers and new business development at Digi-Key Electronics, about trends and the changing landscape of the industry. In the second half of this interview, Beeson discusses the EDA tools market, and how Digi-Key works with PCB designers to present the most efficient, seamless process for selecting components.

Happy Holden: Does Digi-Key have or provide a PCB design EDA tool? There’s one that I use a lot, and with one click, they send a quote for all of the parts within a few seconds because they’re tied in with a distributor. Is this driven by the distributor, or is this a loose alliance? Do you have those value-added services like the free EDA tool?

Chris Beeson: You’ll see a variety of different things related to our EDA tools, and PCBs is a large area of conversation for us and something that we’re currently enhancing. I jokingly said, “We’re in the pizza business, but we only provide the ingredients; we’ve never provided the crust.” Doesn’t that seem oddly related to the service we provide? There’s an opportunity to provide greater services in the entire PCB arena, but as a distributor, how do you do that? In general, that’s not a stocked item that’s part of the bill of materials (BOM) that gets ordered every day. There has to be an arrangement where you have a user experience where you can buy the components as well as access to a design orientation for the circuit board and be comfortable with the dropship orientation of the circuit board going to the user as well.

To read this entire interview, which appeared in the October 2019 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.