As Regional Sales Manager, Crespin is responsible for market development in Southern Europe and parts of Eastern Europe. His network consists of distributors, resellers, and e-commerce partners. He also mediates and localizes corporate communication strategies at a regional level. Previously, Crespin worked in the film industry at Winton/duPont in New York City and was involved in IT sales. Crespin holds a master’s degree in Business Administration in art and art history from Colgate University in New York.
What is the state of the Italian market and what are the prospects? The Italian market is very dynamic due to the traditionally high number of small and medium enterprises in the country. Consequently, having the right partners is essential for our success because this way they focus on maintaining numerous customers at the national level. Although having a single Distributor/Reseller partner is a valid alternative (for example, CDC and its Computer Discount stores), nothing guarantees success in this market. In other words, the Italian version of franchising is not the traditional franchising structure that Antec knows and works with globally. In Italy, most stores that are part of a franchise maintain their own private store identity and, if they want, exercise their right to buy directly from the headquarters. Now that even the most important brands offer low-cost PCs, even the largest integrators feel the effects of this change which leads them to focus on specialized areas such as micro/mini ATX solutions, media centers, and also laptops. Anything to capture consumer attention.What is the consumers’ relationship with this market? Consumers are very sensitive to pricing policies and tend to invest in low-cost solutions. Although there is a high percentage of this type of consumer, Antec’s customer base increases year after year thanks to various factors: 1) market maturity: technological advances can only be guaranteed by the leading component market companies and integrators rely on us; 2) consumer maturity: consumers are increasingly realizing that investing a few extra euros in our products allows them to save in the long run (our products are covered by 3 to 5 years of warranty and guarantee high performance).What is Antec’s vision? Our strategy is to create brand awareness of Antec in the market and position ourselves as leaders in high-performance computer components for the PC upgrade and “do-it-yourself” markets. We want to educate the market and highlight the advantages and quality of our products compared to imported or unbranded OEMs. Finally, we also want to work with the major franchise retailers we work with in Europe.Who is your typical customer? Small and medium-sized businesses, ranging from resellers to integrators.Who are your competitors? When it comes to quality, there really isn’t much competition in the market. It is more a matter of brand awareness and recognition that other companies established years before Antec entered the market that make their products competitive.What does Antec offer compared to competitors present in Italy, why choose you? Antec has more than 20 years of experience in designing and manufacturing cases, racks, power supplies (PSU), and high-quality component cooling products. In general, the choice of a case is also linked to its appearance and Antec cases always offer an elegant and clean design that clearly differentiates them from competitors at first glance; power supplies, on the other hand, look the same to most users, and here too Antec makes a difference because it offers not only quality but also maximum efficiency. What the market and consumers need to understand in this area is that buying unbranded products becomes uneconomical in the long run because many products are not at all efficient and in some cases are rebranded and sold as higher wattage products. Almost all of our PSUs guarantee a minimum efficiency of 80%, not to mention the 3 to 5 year warranty.What are the industry updates? We recently signed an agreement with Ingram Micro Italy that will have unlimited availability of a wide range of products such as computer cases, cooling fans, lighting components, and other innovative accessories for the market and will handle creating brand awareness in the country. We expect significant growth in terms of customers and to double our results in Italy in 2007.How was the past year and what are your future goals? Last year results saw a 155% growth compared to the previous year. For this year we have already exceeded our targets and thanks to the new partnership we expect even greater growth.
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