Company: Avnet Inc.
Timeframe: Started in 2005, Ongoing
Computer and electronics distributor Avnet Inc. has a history of being a good corporate citizen, which includes a community affairs program that focuses on education and
children's issues. And although stakeholder engagement has always been an important part of Avnet's community affairs efforts - especially when it comes to employees, customers
and suppliers - it achieved new heights with a campaign that tapped into a vein that had not been addressed by the company in the past.
Avnet decided to reach out to community colleges, which it believed to be an under-served market, and worked with Maricopa Community College District (MCCD) in Arizona to
create the Avnet Tech Games. This technology-related team competition gave MCCD students a chance to showcase their talents, gain experience outside the classroom and earn
scholarships.
Maricopa Community College District is the largest community college in the U.S., with 10 different community colleges in Phoenix and two skills centers. The schools teach a
total of 288,000 students. "It was a natural for us," says Radosevich. "It was very easy to say we're going to come up with eight competitive events, and schools will put forth
teams to compete against each other from all 12 entities."
The Games included building Lego robots that would navigate a maze and perform a set task; designing and building a digital device to meet specific criteria; creating e-
commerce Web sites for an Avnet value-added reseller; configuring a networked environment that would withstand attempts to gain unauthorized access and develop a "security policy"
document to go with it; inventing a technical product prototype; and building the fastest, most innovative computer possible. A career fair rounded out the package.
The idea for the Games originated in an awareness that the community college district was not getting enough attention from corporate entities that get involved in educational
programs, according to Teri Radosevich, Avnet's director of community relations and public affairs. Many corporations worked with schools at the K-12 level, or with universities
and four-year colleges, which had either an engineering program or a clear "supply chain" to provide new recruits, but community colleges had fallen into a crack in the
sidewalk.
To reach these untapped potential stakeholders, Avnet partnered with an occupational studies program, working with students who were engaged in tech programs, taking business
courses, or otherwise involved in fields from which the company might logically hire. Avnet is a high-tech company, but in distribution, not manufacturing. Says Radosevich, "We
don't manufacture anything. Our suppliers include Intel and other chip companies, and our customers include Honeywell or General Dynamics. We are a distributor that gets the
product from the manufacturer to their customers. We also work with computers, from IBM to Hewlett-Packard, distributing their products, with value adds and services to the end
customers." The company is strictly B2B, and in Avnet's case, the "Bs" are all big companies.
When the company was putting the Games together, it wanted to ensure that its community efforts were implemented in partnership with the same people who were suppliers and
customers, says Radosevich. They invented eight different competitive events for the participating students, but, says Radosevich, they wanted to know what would inspire, say, AMD
to come on board for the event. One of the events, building the fastest computer the students could come up with, seemed ideal for a manufacturer of processors. AMD has sponsored
the Games for the past two years.
During the development stages, Avnet went to the colleges and skills centers and asked what the instructors were teaching in the classrooms. "We needed to make sure they had
the capabilities, make sure that what we were doing with the Tech Games would stretch beyond what they were doing in classroom," says Radosevich.
Another goal was to ensure that students were developing skills they would need in the working world after graduation. In engineering-related Games, the students needed to know
how important communications are in order to facilitate future efforts to sell products for a company. To address this goal, Radosevich says, "We took the engineering game and
made 50% about the problem, but the rest was presenting a report, talking about it." One competing team was designing a secure system, but part of the challenge was writing a
security policy document and presenting it together with the design. The goal was to give the kids a more well-rounded grounding in their fields that would serve them well in
future careers.
The overarching goals of the Games also included benefits for Avnet, of course. "We did want to create a better workforce for high-tech companies to hire from for ourselves and
our partners. That was one of the main goals," Radosevich notes. "We wanted to create a better educated workforce, teach them the skills they need on the job. They came away with
book learning and hands-on experience."
The Games also fulfill the function of active recruitment for Avnet and the companies that partner with it to sponsor the games. Last year Avnet hired two students as a direct
result of the Games. The hiring aspect dovetails with the bigger picture of skills, concepts, teamwork, creativity, and decision making students don't necessarily learn in a
classroom environment.
The third goal was to promote Avnet's mission involving children's wellbeing and education, which already spanned levels from kindergarten through university, to round out its
charitable giving efforts, as well as raising students' interest in high-tech careers.
"We made the events fun and exciting and exposed them to what it would be like to go into these industries," Radosevich notes. "Most of the games had a mentoring element
involved. On the day of the games, the judges for the events (we ended up with seven after one fell out) were industry experts from Avnet and customers and suppliers. There was
lots of interaction between the students and judges." A networking hour before the awards presentation gave the students a chance to meet executives from the 12 company sponsors,
Avnet executives, including the company's CEO and his direct reports, and the presidents and deans from the community college districts.
"The networking hour was an opportunity for them to meet the right people and practice their networking skills and interviewing skills. We did some mock internship interviews
with different executives," Radosevich says. The Games took place on March 2 this year, so the company doesn't know yet whether they will result in another round of hiring for
2007.
In addition to gaining experience and networking opportunities, the students who won each of the seven events got $1,000 scholarships. The prizes went to every member of the
winning teams, which varied in size depending on what they were doing, from two to five students.
The campaign garnered $16,000 worth of scholarships, $55,000 in donations for the event and $22,000 in donations for parts and equipment from the corporate community. A total
of 300 students and faculty participated. Avnet also won, achieving a 25% boost in brand awareness in the Phoenix community - where, by the way, it does not run any local
advertising except what is directly related to the marketing of the Games.
Avnet is already planning for next year's event, considering what they want to do, which events need to be retooled, etc. They have to work fast, before the faculty members
start their summer hiatuses. In addition, Radosevich is working with another Avnet location in Dallas, meeting the the community there to discuss the possibility of expanding the
Games to a new location. Avnet has to be cautious in considering expansion, however, because not every location can pull it off. "The Folks in Dallas have the wherewithal to pull
it off," she says. "Lots of places have the interest, but it's a huge undertaking, so they don't all have the ability to do this."
Contact:
Teri Radosevich, 480.643.7688, [email protected]
The Challenges
One big challenge Avnet faced was media relations, complicated by the fact that the program is very young: This was only the second year the Tech Games had run. The Games were
not an established event yet, so people weren't yet fully aware of it, and getting the word out to the media and trade publications was complicated. "Next year, when it's our
third annual event, when we have done it every year at same time, it will be easier to get the word out," says Teri Radosevich, Avnet's director, community relations and public
affairs.
Another challenge touched on the issue of attracting sponsorships in a high-tech field. "There's incredible turnover in the high-tech industry, because of the ups and downs in
what the customers face," says Radosevich. Freescale Semiconductor had been one of the Games' biggest sponsors. This year, it wanted to sponsor at the same level as last year, but
before the company could send the contract back, a private equity firm bought the company and promptly put a freeze on all community activities. Simlarly, Radosevich notes that
Phillips was involved in a private equity deal that prevented its participation. Mergers and market ups and downs evidently affect more than the employees of a company. They can
also bring its corporate responsibility efforts to a standstill.
Most brutal were the logistics, says Radosevich. "This is like doing seven different huge events at one time," she says. "We had several different electronic issues, we needed
the right equipment, and we had to beg, borrow and steal some of it."
Stakeholder Engagement Event Solutions
For Avnet, the project management of something like the Tech Games is much more difficult than other PR events because of the scope, so pulling the Games together is a year-
long planning process for the company. To achieve its goals, the company has to work with sponsors and other stakeholders as a team. Crucial to the effort are:
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Getting the right employees engaged at Avnet. Teri Radosevich emphasizes that she is director of community relations and public affairs, but this was a team effort. She
says she could not have pulled it off without her Avnet "volunteers."
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An expert team of technical experts to create the events, help find the sponsors, acquire the right equipment, and meet with the right faculty people to shape events.
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Finding the right faculty participants. When you work with 288,000 students, it's hard to penetrate a market that size. As Avnet was marketing to make the students aware of
the Games, most of the recruiting was done through the faculty. Teachers reached out to students and got them interested in registering.
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Getting the necessary equipment. Some was donated. In the case of the best computer competition, Avnet generated $20,000 in donations just for the parts to build one game.
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Securing a location that can handle the event. Sheer volume was a big issue, and Internet, security and electrical systems further complicated the set-up. Mesa Community
College, as a school with a serious technology program, has hosted the Games both in 2005 and 2006.
PR Best Practices: Gather Your Team Of Experts
Avnet created a subcommittee of PR pros to give the Tech Games the "best bang for the buck." The team comprised Avnet's vice president of public relations, PR pros from the
community college district, and a consultant the company hired to drive the campaign in specific markets. (That consultant is a former Motorola employee who knows the tech
industry and is a professor teaching in a local university. She is also the editor of a trade publication, so she had all the "parts" Avnet needed.) Gathering people with the
right, specific skill sets and specialties let Avnet capitalize on each person's strengths for the best results. The colleges had outreach to local community newspapers and zone
editions of big papers. The internal Avnet PR expert focused on trade publications, working with contacts she had from a business perspective. The PR consultant focused on
community reporters and broadcast folks who do community stories.