Starday: why ours is an 'alternative' distribution

Starday has always offered the market alternative suppliers and products to the traditional ones. This strategy, as the founders explained, has proved to be successful and has taken the company beyond national borders.

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Starday

by Laura Reggiani

Independent distributor of active, passive and electromechanical electronic components, present in the territory since 1984, Starday has always focused its attention on customers, through a supply of quality products and services and the proposal of solutions to specific needs, and on suppliers, supporting them in their entry into the Italian market and in the marketing of products.

Franco Fiorini and Giulio Pastorello, the founding partners, have always been at the helm, assisted for some years now by Livio Azzoni, head of marketing and sales. As they explain, from the outset Starday's objective has been to present itself as a qualified and technological "alternative", through an innovative and quality product offer from "alternative" suppliers to the top players. We spoke to them about the company and its business model, results and growth plans for the future.

Starday founders
Franco Fiorini and Giulio Pastorello, the founding partners of Starday

What have been the company's milestones since it was founded in 1984? How has Starday evolved in these almost 40 years?

Starday was born from an idea that anticipated a market need. It was the 1980s, a time of great development for electronics and a period of maximum explosion in the distribution of components. As the founders of Starday, we soon found ourselves having to supply many more products than we had planned, and the natural step was to have our own linecard to better identify the company. The choice was to reward new brands, which were approaching the Italian market for the first time and needed support to introduce products to the market. In these 40 years this strategy has never changed, on the contrary, it has been strengthened, just as the essence of the company to propose alternative suppliers and products to existing ones has never changed.


The full article is published in the Issue 8 of Elettronica AV


Who is Starday today and what is its business model? What are its strengths and differentiation from other players?

Starday's business model is typical of a distributor who considers its represented companies as strategic partners, to be supported in every request and need. The experience and professionalism acquired, the continuous training of our staff, the careful evaluation and qualification of suppliers are the fundamental elements that have always guided all Starday activities. Without forgetting our ability to interpret and adapt to the needs of a changing market with the flexibility and reactivity that distinguishes us.

How are you commercially structured? Who are your customers and what service can they expect from Starday?

Starday employs around forty people, many of them dedicated to commercial activities. We have a sales network organised across the whole of Italy and also expanding into the international market, following important customers outside Italy, with whom we work mainly with some franchises with exclusive relationships. We are organised with two different sales figures, plus technical support, in the two macro-areas of north and centre-south. We serve customers of different sizes, operating in different sectors, mainly in industry, automotive and household appliances. We are an independent but global distributor, able to support small customers who need small quantities of product and who do not have programming skills but want access to local stock, but also to meet the needs of large global customers who have major production and manufacturing plants around the world, to whom we ship against any request. We offer customers services with real added value, such as the possibility of stocking up with an availability of goods that is not virtual, but is real and physical, in a dedicated space in our warehouse. Or kitting, through the proposal of a complete kit of products, which goes beyond those on our linecard, thanks to the support of partners who allow us to respond to the most diverse customer requests.

A review of the performance in 2020 and some predictions for 2021. What are Starday's future development plans and what strategies will you put in place to achieve the objectives?

It was a difficult year for everyone, and like everyone else we lost some turnover and did not reach the target we had set ourselves, although we managed to defend our position in the market. Our good financial situation not only enabled us to get through 2020 unscathed, but also to open up 2021 with a series of major investments in what for Starday, along with stock, is the company's real asset, namely human resources. To this end, we have brought new people into the company, young people capable of bringing about a cultural change and supporting the development plans we have set ourselves for the next five years. With this in mind, we have also invested in a new and larger state-of-the-art warehouse, which will support us in our future growth. "Customer-centric, solution provider and technology advisor - these three words sum up our strategy. We believe that there is little to change and we think that to achieve our goals we just need to keep doing what we have always done well, maintaining our role as a provider of quality, innovative and alternative products. With the acquisitions of recent years, the market has become increasingly consolidated and component manufacturers have halved in size; in this scenario our role of introducing new suppliers to the market, who can provide our customers with a technologically advanced alternative to what is available, is more fundamental than ever.


The full article is published in the Issue 8 of Elettronica AV


 

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