Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Board Meetings, Branding and Time Use

I am in the airport lounge in San Francisco. I am tired. Perhaps thinking about the overnight flight back and the full meeting packed day tomorrow is what does it. Someone should start a business renting out beds in the airport for a few hours travelers have between flights.

I am reading a book called “The Imperfect Board Member” by Jim Brown. No link to the book since has not yet been published. I am proofing it and offering suggestions. The importance of board governance has never been higher. This book caters to that need. Good readable book.

When it is released, I will do a proper review of it complete with a link.

Interesting coincidence to be reading this book since I just came from board meetings in Fremont. SYNNEX has good governance and a very strong board.

On the flight down, I sat next to someone from HP(but not the divisions we deal with). When I told him I was with SYNNEX, he did not recognize the name, despite the fact that we do hundreds of millions with them. When I said I started EMJ and SYNNEX bought Merisel, he recognized both Merisel and EMJ. This shows the lingering impact of brand. Makes me think. Now I need to create a SYNNEX brand that surpasses either of those.

And my time tip of the day. Because I blog, I tend to spend my time better. Why? Well, I would not want to blog that I sat around all day and did not accomplish anything. Tracking things can help keep you on track. This works with diet, exercise, time use – just about anything.

8 comments:

  1. Yes, I am like the HP guy (except you are not a customer of mine). I have heard of EMJ and Merisel but am not familiar with SYNNEX - although on reflection I have read a few articles about the takeover.

    The folks at SYNNEX should probably have used the name Merisel when they bought them. Was there a reason - other than ego - that they went with a name few recognize?

    Great blog!

    Tom Beakbane

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  2. Done is done. Now, I see this as an opportunity to build a brand. This is exciting to me.

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  3. Possibly the brand is not recognized in specific areas of the market, ie. consumer. Synnex was/is a brand that has been around a while and as people in the industry keep on top of the market, they more than likely know the brand. EMJ and Merisel had more visibility with manufacturers due to various news in the Canadian market. Visibility will build the Synnex brand, those good news stories that EMJ is famous for, will drive value in the Synnex brand, its not all about the revenue, why not leverage the EMJ brand to build Synnexs brand?

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  4. I will have to be added to the list of people who haven't heard of Synnex up until roughly last year when Synnex bought EMJ.

    I've heard of EMJ, Merisel and Ingram Micro, but never thought of Synnex as a distributor.

    Driving down Wellington the other day, I for the first time noticed the Synnex logo. I had just seen it a few days ago at your speech at WLU. I've lived in Guelph for years, and had never noticed that driveway.

    This is my personal opinion, and in no way meant to be offensive. But the SYNNEX logo to me, and the website, are far from representative of the modern technology that SYNNEX supplies. Times New Roman seems more classical than modern.

    Also, having corporation under SYNNEX gives it a negative feel. Seems to emphasize, heirarchy, business suits, bureaucracy etc... at least that's how I look at it. I think any text other than the name in a logo should tell the audience a bit more about what the company does.

    A fresher, more modern logo would do wonders for the brand image of Synnex.

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  5. Jim - it takes courage to invite input on a subject like this!

    And it’s sure fun (and easy) to criticize corporate names/identities/websites in the same way that it is easy to criticize someone’s clothes – and the comments are rarely considered constructive. Now that the two previous contributors are expressing their opinions I'll jump in again.

    Jim, what is with the landing page on the Synnex website? Three stock shots of happy executives and a telsell gal next to a globe?? It is like every other tech company that cannot express what they do. And why no copy? Each of your blogs is twice as interesting as the home page. And in the "About Synnex" section in one paragraph there is more jargon than in all your blogs put together!

    Betcha didn't build EMJ by saying you provided "supply chain solutions"!

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  6. Tom et al: Please note that the powers that be have allowed me to tinker with the corporate web sites to make them better.

    Example: if you compare the green navigation bar on the Canadian site (new) and compare to the U.S. site (old) you'll see a difference.

    The wheels are in motion! If you have suggestions, send them directly to me: tom@synnex.com

    (Hmm - maybe I should start a blog detailing our redesign steps...)

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  7. Hello world! I'm from Latvia, I now have a computer and Internet! It's so interesting here! But on some forums I see strange posts, they offer to buy some pills or something and they look very stupid. It is robots posting? I thought moderators should delete such posts. Maybe somebody will explain me what's going on? But at all it is very interesting to speak to all you people!
    Kisses! :)

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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