TDK honors best distributors in Europe

• Gold for Mouser Electronics, Rutronik Electronics, and EPi Components
• Increased storage requirements for higher end-customer satisfaction

TDK honored its best distribution partners in Europe by presenting them – for the eighth time – with the TDK European Distribution Award 2020. The gold award in the “High-Service Distributors” category went to Mouser Electronics. In the “International Volume Distributors” category, Rutronik Electronics was honored as in the previous year. The best local distributor is the Austrian company EPi Components.

Only two other awards were given in the “Local Distributors” category this time: Silver went to Gateway Electronic Components in the UK and Bronze to AVIS KS in Slovakia.

“In the past year, during lockdown periods of the pandemic and especially in the aftermath, we have seen that distributor inventory is a major factor for satisfaction of end-customers,” says Dietmar Jaeger, Head of TDK's Global Distributor Division. “That's why we raised our requirements and couldn't give out as many awards this year as we would have liked.”

At the end of 2020, there were already signs of a recovery in global business, followed by a massive upswing and extremely high demand for TDK products in 2021, says Jaeger. Mouser Electronics, in particular, was able to meet the highly increased demand very well and thus best fulfilled the award criteria.

“To be honored by this award means a lot, especially when we understand the Japanese meaning of Senten Manten being a perfect result,” says Mark Burr-Lonnon, Senior Vice President of Global Service & EMEA & APAC Business at Mouser Electronics. “We are incredibly proud recipients. I want to thank the Mouser and TDK teams that have worked so hard to achieve this success.”

The annual appraisal of distribution partners is based on TDK's Senten Manten program. The Japanese term stands for the perfect result, which is reached with 1,000 points. The scoring for the award is based on distributors' performance and collaboration with TDK in four categories: business development, inventory management, contractual terms, and operational excellence.