> The 2024 EDS Summit: NEW Dates & Location
The 2024 EDS Leadership Summit in Las Vegas is moving from the Mirage Resort to Resorts World Las Vegas
The 2024 EDS Leadership Summit , initially set for May 13-17 at the Mirage, Las Vegas, Nevada, is relocating to Resorts World Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip. The event will now take place Tuesday, May 21 through Friday, May 24 – one week later than originally planned.
The shift in venues for the annual industry gathering was necessitated by the change to the start of extensive renovations and expansion of the Mirage, which was recently acquired by Hard Rock International from MGM Resorts. Construction was originally scheduled for later in the year, but is now slated to begin in the first half of 2024.
Considered the premier event for the international electronic components industry, the EDS Leadership Summit – held at the Mirage since 2015 – spans four days and attracts top executives from the world’s leading manufacturing, distribution, and sales representative firms. The 2023 Summit saw participation from over 3,500 attendees.
“Our partnership with the Mirage over the past nine years has been tremendous,” said Ryan Riesterer, EDS Executive Vice President. “When Hard Rock management decided to advance their construction schedule, they worked with us proactively to find what we consider an absolutely outstanding venue for our event. It’s bittersweet to be leaving the Mirage so abruptly, but we are excited for this move to Resorts World and the opportunities it presents for EDS, our sponsors and our attendees.”
Opened in June 2021, Resorts World Las Vegas stands as the first newly completed resort on the Las Vegas Strip since the Cosmopolitan’s debut in 2010. It features a dramatic 66-story tower, housing 3,500 guest rooms across three unique hotel experiences, all managed by Hilton. Resorts World’s state-of-the-art convention facilities are particularly impressive, with over 250,000 square feet of flexible space and an expansive rooftop terrace with Strip views.
“Our sales and marketing team is dedicated to ensuring a smooth transition for our attendees and exhibitors,” said David Loftus, President and CEO of the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA). “Although the location is new, you can be sure the experience of EDS will remain unchanged.”
Walter E. Tobin, CEO of the Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) agreed. “The fact is, wherever EDS is held, when you have the leaders of major distributors, manufacturers and rep firms coming together in one place to talk about business, magic is going to happen.”
General registration for the 2024 EDS Summit is expected to begin in early February.
ABOUT THE EDS LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
EDS is the premier annual event for leaders and innovators in the international electronic components industry. It brings together the manufacturers, distributors and representatives of electronic components, instruments and accessories. It allows the brightest minds in the industry an opportunity to meet, make contacts and build their businesses. Suppliers of industry goods and services also are on hand to market their products.
The emphasis at EDS is on forging and maintaining business relationships through scheduled, one-on-one meetings. The event also offers important product exhibits, educational programming and networking opportunities. EDS is a combined effort and strongly supported by two of the industry’s leading member organizations — the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA) and the Electronics Representatives Association International (ERA).
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The Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) is pleased and honored to announce that Dick Neumann, former vice president at Grayhill, Inc., has been named the 2024 recipient of the ERA Lifetime Achievement Award.
October 2023 dipped slightly when compared to September 2022 POS. October is tracking about 4.2 percent below the average for 2023 and running about 4 percent behind 2022 POS numbers. Most of the 150+ companies that we include in our POS Index are running slightly below their 2022 numbers. The industry is beginning to feel a definite slowdown; the last two months should help to provide a good indication of what 2024 will be like.
> The 2024 ERA Conference Committee is excited to announce that Andrew Busch and Cam Marston will present as General Session speakers at the sold-out 
> The Representor editorial staff is now accepting 
> With profound sadness, ERA must announce the passing of Chuck Tanzola, CPMR, ERA Board President, and vice president at Fusion Sourcing Group. Chuck served ERA and the industry faithfully and selflessly for many years. He served the past two terms as Chairman of the Board and Board President. ERA knew Chuck as a voice of calm and reason who governed ERA as a thoughtful, fair and sensitive leader. His presence will be greatly missed. 
> The ERA White Pin Internship program is now 
> If you did not have the chance to attend the live STEP 2023 event, but still want to access the event’s valuable educational content, the 
> IMPORTANT 
The Electronics Representatives Association announces the latest graduates of its 2023 Chapter Officer Leadership Training (
> COLT — ERA’s live, virtual chapter officer leadership training program — will take place Nov. 1-3, and registration will end tomorrow, October 25! Chapter officers, or those interested in pursuing a chapter leader role, are encouraged to attend and gain creative ideas and practical knowledge about increasing member engagement and excitement in their local ERA chapter. 
> 2024 ERA Conference registration is at 85 percent capacity for attendees! Want to secure your seat at the most popular industry event, and have the opportunity to network with more than 600 rep, manufacturer and distributor leaders? Do not wait.
> The hurrier I go – the behinder I get!
EXECUTIVE COMMENTARY
Walter Tobin, ERA CEO
by Walter E. Tobin, ERA CEO
This time a year ago, many of us were asking our partners (and were also asked by them), “How’s business?”
We then may have listed a litany of challenges that we were dealing with: long and uncertain lead times, unclear/inaccurate forecasts from our customers and being asked to adhere to and/or pass along NCNR clauses that had never seen before. There were shipping issues, port backups, the Great Resignation phenomenon, work-from-home issues, the search for the “golden screw”— so many things for us to consider and manage every day.
Yet, when a follow-up question was asked or we asked, “How’s your revenue this year?” we often said or heard, “We are having a record year!”
How was that even possible? I guess there must have been some product somewhere that was able to be shipped and billed to someone.
Was all of this product really needed? We have now become aware that there was a lot of double/triple ordering done to hedge our bets on averting product shortages. We may have agreed to NCNR clauses that we would have never even considered to agree to in the past, all while hoping that our own “golden screws” arrived on our docks.
So here we are a year later. Lead times have returned to a more normal cadence and many golden screws have been received. The NCNR clauses that we agreed to are now being enforced, all leading to a period of declining bookings with book-to-bill ratios falling below 1:1. We are now relying on our past order backlog to sustain us.
Bookings down, billings falling, inventory rising…yikes! What are we do to now? Some companies have adopted a “damn the torpedoes: full speed ahead” policy: cancel open orders, refuse shipments on past orders placed and accepted in good faith, renege on NCNR orders and begin to sell excess inventory on the open/gray market. This is all to achieve some short-term relief and to try to maximize their own quarterly/annual financials. Some of these tactics are working!
Some companies are demanding lower prices due to the return of a “buyer’s market” and to take advantage of companies who are now swimming (drowning?) in inventory. These companies are under pressure to reduce their own inventories and sell at reduced prices that will then lead to their own lower margins, which will then wreak havoc on their own financials.
In addition when companies sell their excess inventory to the gray market, it sits out there only to be sold down the road to customers who may take advantage of lower prices who may have bought this product from the authorized manufacturer/distributor channel who were relying on new orders down the road to help them sell their inventory. This excess inventory sits out there and then is sold down the road at lower prices —another short-term action that has longer-term ramifications on our supply chain.
When COVID-19 hit and the supply chain “broke,” why did it break? Because no one had any “upside” inventory to support the need for unforecasted demand inside of lead time. Customers were clamoring for manufacturers to simply “turn on” or build factories to support this unforecasted demand and many were asking as to why the distributors did not have more product on their shelves.
We will never learn, will we? But here we are again, looking to take margin away from the company to our left and right in the supply chain and to demand lower prices which then limits their ability to fund unforecasted inventory in the supply chain.
We need to try to take the long-term approach. It doesn’t help that Wall Street forces public companies to look at business on a 90-day horizon which forces public companies to do the yin and yang every 90 days. Wall Street also forces our publicly traded suppliers and channel partners to fight each other while customers are looking to us to right the ship, all while demanding lower prices.
A new and perhaps naive approach is for each one of us to ask the company above and below us in the supply chain for their help and guidance on preventing the supply chain disaster of the COVID-19 period from happening again. Ask, “What do you need from us?” Perhaps allow them to make a bit more margin on our business to then help fund new factories, unforecasted demand and shorter lead times. Build a true partnership based on mutual respect and trust, and not just on price alone.
Try it on one of your supply chain partnerships and see what they say. What harm can it do? You may end up positioning your company ahead of the rest of your competitors when times get tough again. It’s worth a try!
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