January 2023 Newsletter

Following extensive research RS Think Hub was successfully launched in October this year with the aim of transforming the working lives of engineers. Designed to help engineers buy the products they need, quickly and easily, this revolutionary digital platform offers access to a wide range of products while at the same time providing answers and information to technical questions.  

In the last twelve months we’ve spoken to a broad range of engineers to understand them and their work, and to discover what we could do to make it easier, better, faster, and more efficient. 

RS Think Hub is at the early stage of development with the MVP focusing on two innovative features, in the sensors category.

The innovative features are:

1. The Product Comparison Tool allows engineers to filter products by material, brand or other product-specific attributes so they can choose the best sensor for the job they’re working on
2. **What The Expert Says **is an area where engineers can go to for answers to questions, access video tutorials and much more. Following the release and based on feedback and users’ comments, we will continuously work to improve the Think Hub so that it meets the needs of engineers into the future.

The platform will evolve quickly, with the future roadmap having some exciting new features, including discovering similar products based on specific requirements coming soon.

The release focuses on proximity and photo-electric sensors, however, in the coming months we plan to include other categories such as contactors/breakers, relays, push buttons and switches, and test and measurement devices. The range expansion will increase at pace, as new categories and suppliers are onboarded.

RS Think Hub – simpler engineering. 

Think Hub (rs-thinkhub.com)

For further information, please contact Rashdeep Kelf at Rashdeep.Kelf@rs-components.com.

At RS Group, we believe that there is a significant opportunity in the decade ahead in facilitating the transition to a low-carbon economy. The global industrial sector has a huge opportunity to provide the product and service solutions that will help businesses to decarbonise and low carbon sectors to develop and thrive. As a business that operates at the very heart of the global industrial supply chain, we are positioning ourselves to play a critical role in supporting our 1.2 billion customers and 2.5 million product suppliers through this transition and we encourage you to join us.

We are taking rapid action. In 2021, we launched our 2030 ESG Action Plan: For A Better World to drive lasting change. In 2022, our efforts were recognised via our achievement of EcoVadis Platinum-level status. This places RS Group in the top 1% of more than 100,000 rated companies assessed by EcoVadis with special recognition for our strong environmental performance and sustainable procurement practices.

And while we have made positive progress, we‘re not able to do this alone. We rely on you, our valued supplier partners to provide over 700,000 products that delight our customers every day. We all need to work together to ensure strong ESG action within our own businesses and wider supply chains. This means supporting our people to thrive, collaborating to decarbonise our global supply chain and offering more sustainable products and service solutions that enable positive change for people and planet.

While RS Group has made positive strides to embed ESG within our business, we want to ensure that all our partners are taking action so we can collectively have a broader impact across the industrial value-chain. To achieve this, we have set out three key asks linked to our global ESG goals with 10 actions. By focusing on these areas, we believe you will increase your impact, strengthen your business and generate significant stakeholder value.

1. Advancing sustainability

• Set science-based carbon reduction targets by 2025
• Develop and offer more sustainable products
• Use less packaging and more sustainable alternatives
• Use lower-carbon modes of transport

2. Empowering our people

• Protect and empower people across your business and value chain

3. Doing business responsibly

• Provide transparent ESG information as part of our supplier qualification process
• Read and sign our Ethical Trading Declaration Policy
• Become EcoVadis-rated/Sedex members and target ESG performance improvements
• Commit to and align your efforts to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)
• Collaborate to set ESG partnership objectives, drive shared action and track progress

We have also recently qualified as a constituent of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) – this means we are one of Europe’s sustainability leaders as identified by S&P through their corporate sustainability assessment.

We will be in contact with our supplier network soon to discuss these asks and provide more information on how you can increase your ESG impact.

In November 2022, RS attended the Keysight Partner Event in Athens to understand Keysight partner strategy for 2023 onwards.

At the event, RS won both the marketing excellence award and the business growth award for 2022. Keysight are a strategic supplier in the test and measurement area and the awards are testament to the key partnership between Keysight and RS.

The awards were won on the basis of having a strong inventory profile - expanding the offer with more than 100 products and through strong collaborations between our local market, digital and marketing teams.

Art McFall, Partner Manager at Keysight, said: “RS have been distribution partner for Keysight‘s general purpose instruments for 15 years. Over the past year, RS expanded the range of stocked products by 40%, giving access to more products to a wider range of customers. This investment of inventory enabled more customers to overcome the critical global supply chain issues. Leveraging the extensive RS customer reach and their digital expertise, RS attracted more new customers than ever before. Keysight will continue to extend the range of products available through RS in 2023, and look forward to another successful year.”

In November, more than 70,000 visitors descended on the Messe München Exhibition Center to see some of the world’s biggest and best electronics brands showcase their latest and greatest products and solutions.

Following our last appearance at the event in 2018, we returned to Munich in 2022 as RS Group for the first time, showing customers and suppliers alike our One Brand. One Team. One Culture.

Over the four-day event, we met customers and suppliers in our purpose-built meeting spaces to showcase our abilities as a truly world-class supplier of products and technologies that are changing the world for the better. We also demonstrated our wide offering of services and solutions from RS DesignSpark, RS PRO and OKdo.

It wasn’t all serious business though, with visitors commenting on our fresh stand design, stand-out uniforms and, of course, our custom-built Scalextric track which drew a large crowed throughout the event.

Click here to watch the RS electronica 2022 highlight video to catch a glimpse of what was on show.

The next chapter in the DesignSpark and RS PRO stories launched at electronica 2022 on 15th November in Munich, with both unveiling their new-look branding as part of the RS brand integration.

RS DesignSpark

Pete Wood, Head of DesignSpark Experience Marketing, said: ‘’The brand image is dynamic, and we were excited to give visitors a glimpse of our new website and personalised journey experience.”

“The event also allowed us to showcase our purpose, aligned to the RS ESG agenda: to educate, influence, promote and enable engineers to design responsibly, for a better world #ActivistEngineering. We showcased several community ’air quality’ projects ranging from the Good Air Canary and Breathe Better Bear.”

However, the pièce de resistance was the launch of our new subscription models – free and paid tiers, which offer even more features and benefits and enhanced tools for our 1.3 million members.

RS PRO

RS PRO continues to grow, offering more and more value to its customers, and now it has a completely revamped and modernised visual system, with a new logo, new typography and graphic language, new colours and assets. Even the RS PRO-BOT has a fresh look!

In our laboratories around the world, RS PRO engineers inspect products and parts according to some of the latest material and elemental specifications, to award each of them the RS PRO seal of approval.

Why rebrand now?

RS PRO was launched in 2016, and since then, we have always strived to give our customers a consistent brand experience. The fresh brand look is in line with the evolution of RS Group and is a way to showcase and confirm all of the work that we do to expand our range with new products and increasingly sustainable solutions – becoming a one-stop shop for industrial supplies.