AVAD Doing Just Fine, Thank You

Did you see this? “AVAD Reorganization - Laying Off HQ Staff & Moving Functions to DBL.”

From the headline, it might appear that AVAD is losing its way – a common perception since the company was acquired by the giant IT distributor Ingram Micro in 2005.

But it appears to be pretty much business as usual for the national custom electronics distributor.

That’s not to minimize the impact on 12 employees (not "30 to 40" as reported) who will lose their jobs this month, says AVAD general manager Jim Annes, but customers and other business partners should be mostly oblivious to the changes.

The affected employees are in the marketing and finance divisions of AVAD, which is handing most of those functions over to Ingram and DBL Distributing, the CE/IT distributor acquired by Ingram in 2007.

None of the individuals are “customer-facing,” Annes says. The sales and customer-service organizations remain intact and all 23 branches are still standing, with no closures expected in the foreseeable future.

“In fact, the overall footprint is more likely to expand than to contract,” says Annes, refusing to elaborate.

Meanwhile, AVAD continues to shore up its system design and technical support services.

“As our work becomes more digital and integrated and solutions-focused, if we expect dealers to get there we have to help them,” says Annes. “We’re increasing our field sales presence and staffing in the branches because there are a lot of positive indicators we haven’t had in the past few years.”

While AVAD is ready to invest in new staffing, the distributor is cutting back on its traveling Vendopalooza trade shows.

Annes says its partners were suffering from “vendor fatigue” after hitting 20+ locations per year previously -- a pace that is "fine for Metallica" but not for AVAD and most of its partners, Annes says.

This year, AVAD will offer 12 Vendopaloozas -- including two new venues in Boston and New York – that will be “bigger with enhanced training.”