Company profile: KMS Components

Can you tell us a bit about the history of KMS?

KMS Components started out in 1994 and has always been based in Cardiff, although the head office has changed on a number of occasions to allow for the long-term growth of the company.

Founded by Gary Munz, the company has gone from strength to strength under his guidance and was moved to our current purpose built premises nine years ago because we rapidly outgrew our previous building.

Is the company very different now to when it was formed?

It has evolved somewhat since our first trading days, purely selling memory modules and processors to the UK market. KMS started out with around five staff doing various roles from buying, selling, picking and even delivering orders all over the country.

Today we have a large number of brands that we distribute and we also have many own brand products to offer the market. With around a thousand customers, over 15 different product categories and more than 30 brands, we are still seeing continued growth in the market, even in these interesting times.

What would you say your main product focus is?

KMS obviously will always be known as a computer component supplier. We have one of the best proactive sales teams in the business and are very strong in storage, graphics, displays, memory and CPUs. But we also have other business sectors which have seen rapid growth, with our CnM branded consumer electronics and security products being the pick of the bunch.

What areas are you looking to expand into?

There are many key areas that we are looking to move into. We are also very open to any new brands looking to enter the UK market that need a distributor. Our customers are always keen to expand their business so we tend to listen to what they want when we create new business areas.

How would you describe your company ethos?

‘Offer more’ is our ethos. Every time we look to take on a new brand or product we always look to the market to see how we can improve customer service levels, delivery lead times and, of course, offer a competitive price.

We already offer exclusive warranty support and service levels to our customers over and above the competition to help improve the offering they can provide their end users. We want our customers to be long-term partners and we will continue to offer more to them.

Do you think the UK IT industry is in a better state than other industries at the moment?

Many markets are suffering at the moment and in a way I think the hard times have been good for most industries in the long run. The recession has made a lot of companies get back to basics, which can only be only a good thing. It means everyone has to step up their game to be better than before so they can further grow their business.

The IT industry is always a leader in the UK and although budgets were cut during the recession, IT seems to be one of the first industries to show signs of recovery. Businesses realize that neglecting this area is not tenable in the long term, as that constrains a business’ ability to grow and compete affecting it’s long term viability.

Consumers will always have an appetite and need for newer technology as long as certain price points can be met.

What do you think will be the key drivers of growth over the next couple of years?

Unfortunately I left my crystal ball at home today, so I can’t really answer that one accurately! Technology has a wonderful way of enabling people to do things more easily, more efficiently or even things they never thought possible, and the next breakthrough is only just around the corner.

Where do you see KMS in five years’ time?

We have some big plans in place to grow our business in many different product areas; we’re aiming to increase our product line-up and we will also enter into new markets. We will continue to follow the same basic rules we apply today by offering our customers large stocks of products for next day delivery at the very best prices possible.

We will continue to grow our own brand line-up of products to offer better margins for our customers, as well as partnering with more ‘A’ brands to give a complete offering of products from entry level to the high-end.