Anixter International Inc's Customers Performance

Given our role as an aggregator of many different types of products from many different sources and because these products are sold to many different industry groups, there is no well-defined industry group against which we compete. We view the competitive environment as highly fragmented with hundreds of distributors and manufacturers that sell products directly or through multiple distribution channels to end users or other resellers. There is significant competition within each end market and geography served that creates pricing pressure and the need for constant attention to improve services. Competition is based primarily on breadth of products, quality, services, relationships, price and geographic proximity. We believe that we have a significant competitive advantage due to our comprehensive product and service offerings, global distribution network, technically-trained sales team and customized supply chain solutions. We believe our global distribution platform provides a competitive advantage to serving multinational customers’ needs. Our operations and logistics platform gives us the ability to ship orders from inventory for delivery within 24 to 48 hours to all major global markets. In addition, we have common systems and processes throughout the majority of our operations in more than 50 countries that provide our customers and suppliers with global consistency.

We enhance our value proposition to both key suppliers and customers through our technical expertise, global standards participation testing and demonstration facilities and numerous quality assurance certification programs such as ISO 9001:2008 and ISO/TS 16949:2009. Our NSS and EES segments leverage our certified Infrastructure Solutions Lab located at our suburban Chicago headquarters to support customers with technology needs related to enterprise networks, data centers, physical security, building technologies and industrial communications and control. At this lab, we evaluate performance and interoperability to help customers reduce risk through informed purchasing decisions. Our Solutions Briefing Centers, premier technology education and demonstration facilities located in various regions around the globe, focus on enabling our customers with the necessary information to make informed decisions around complex, end-to-end technology solutions.
Because privately held companies account for a significant share of our markets, reliable competitive information is not available.