"There is today a relentless trend in electronics innovation which is driven by consumer demand," says Ian Mason CEO of Electrocomponents, owner of RS Components.
"Expectation around next-generation technologies is higher than ever and it will continue to rise regardless of prevailing economic winds.
"New technologies are governed by higher levels of integration, better performance and ever evolving ecological considerations.
"Behind this innovation, the level of integration and sophistication of ICs is forcing specialisation of design departments and the sharing of IP generated from different teams around the world.
"Add to this the additional factor of post-recession supply chains that are stretched and we see that today designers are faced with a number of challenges when coming up with the next must-have technology or product that will change the world. These challenges can only provide opportunities for distribution players who can support this phenomenon of globalisation in design and production.
"The natural evolution of catalogue distribution is progressive from a large paper catalogue full of products to the sophisticated online resource that is on offer today.
"Customers need to be able to navigate easily and quickly to the core and critical technologies and products they require.
"Our business is based on the aggregation of information from thousands of suppliers. We are a source of products for engineers and our role has now has migrated to providing those resources online to our customers.
"As the expectation on innovation rises, so does the expectation on distribution – the distributor/customer relationship has become more of a partnership on the journey from concept, through design and production to maintenance."