DigiKey CEO Dave Doherty joined EFY’s journalist Dilin Anand in Bengaluru to unpack the company’s India strategy: why India is now a top-priority engineering market, how a single mega-warehouse can still deliver speed, and what “long-tail” really means for electronics and embedded teams. We also explore how DigiKey is empowering India’s engineers, strengthening supply chains, and redefining the future of component sourcing and education.
Q. It’s wonderful to meet you in Bangalore at the DigiKey India office – no longer a GCC, right?
A. Absolutely, it’s a very special day for us and we couldn’t be happier with the team. Our commitment to India is on many fronts. The talent here at DigiKey continues to grow, and one emphasis is on how we tap into talent globally. We have had a presence now for three years, but also as you indicate, the Indian market is very exciting with a growing number of engineers and we wanted to make sure we hit an anchor point from which to serve the market.
Q.Congratulations on receiving the Outstanding Professional Achievement award from WPI, and the Spirit of Excellence award from WE United. How do these milestones resonate with you personally and globally?
A. I think when you start to get recognition awards, it’s just a sign you’re getting old but honestly, I am flattered. Worcester Polytechnic is a small but highly respected engineering university, and I am proud to be an alumnus of a place that shaped me many years ago.
Even more meaningful is the recognition from WE United, which spotlights women in our industry. Our field still lacks diversity in many ways, including gender and ethnic background.
In the United States especially, we have an enormous opportunity because there are so many talented women in leadership. We want to ensure their careers continue to advance and do not level off too early. These awards represent a commitment to supporting people and helping every individual reach their full potential.
Q. To give context for the India market, how do you see India’s current contribution to the global landscape?
A. India is still growing within the engineering industry, and the future is extremely encouraging. For DigiKey, India is one of the top ten countries we ship to. That matters from a revenue point of view, but what matters even more is that India is the number two country in terms of traffic to our website. That tells us there are eager engineers here who want to learn and want to build, and those are two things that really excite us.
Q. And, where does India rank within Asia itself?
A. In Asia, India is our second largest market after China but India is growing very quickly. In terms of website traffic, India is number one. We receive more inquiries and more visits from India than from China or any other place in Asia.
Q. Do you see any unique opportunities in the Indian market, or any trends in Indian traffic that stand out?
A. From what I have seen in India, the trends are very similar to what we observe globally. Technology is now part of everything, whether it is energy, healthcare, transportation, or telecom. The same forces that are driving growth around the world are also driving growth here in India.
Q. We are seeing more locally designed consumer devices in India. In your view, what are the top market segments showing the strongest activity?
A. For DigiKey, industrial has always been a very broad segment, and that is also our largest and most innovative segment. While people often focus on AI hyperscalers, that space is led by a few major players, so our role there is mainly in engineering support. Industrial, by contrast, spans a far wider range of customers and applications.
Another area we see growing is the healthcare industry, particularly home diagnostics. When I was young, we would have to travel to a large facility in a major city to be treated.
Today, we have watches or rings that aid in health monitoring, and I believe we will see more and more of that to diagnose our health. It is ironic to me that in my vehicle I have more diagnostics about the vehicle than I know about myself, and I think that will drastically change in the upcoming years.
Wearables and personal monitoring devices are transforming how people manage their health, and this will accelerate.
Q. Are there any emerging trends that are still moderate today but show early signs of scaling up in the future?
A. As a society we tend to overhype technology in the early years. Bill Gates had a quote that said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”
AI is one of the most significant future trends. For years, the industry talked about the Internet of Things until the term became overused, but the impact of connectivity eventually became unmistakable. AI appears to be on a similar path. Today, the hyperscalers dominate the AI landscape, but most activity is concentrated among a few very large companies.
The real opportunity will emerge as AI moves to the edge. As more devices become AI-enabled and connected, the customer base will broaden and diversify. Engineers in India and around the world are already exploring ways to integrate these capabilities into their designs.
Q. As DigiKey moves from a GCC model to a full India office, how would you describe the earlier team structure and mandate, and how has it evolved?
A. DigiKey’s roots are in a very small rural community in northwest Minnesota. There were only a couple of thousand people in our town then, but our founder was an engineer, and he was a hobbyist. He recognized the value of supplying small quantities of many parts so engineers could build and experiment. That original idea still guides us today.
We see the same spirit around the world, including in India, where students and engineers are eager to learn, experiment, and innovate. In our home country, about half the workforce is connected to the company, often through family ties, and traditions like DigiBucks – our own pseudo currency that can only be spent at local Thief River Falls businesses, reflect that bond.
We look for ways to look and feel local and that means being able to share information in local language, local currency and more. There are many unifying factors of what people look for along with some differentiation between countries’ culture and values, and how we try to portray that information to our folks in different places.
Q. Could you outline DigiKey’s year-one priorities for India: what’s a key challenge, and the role partners will play in giving even the smallest Indian customers full-catalog access?
A. Our main priority is serving the end market. India is a strong opportunity, though we still need to navigate a little bureaucracy, especially around imports.
Our model is to bring all the product from one location, from which we can offer the world’s largest selection to our customers. This is possible because we can aggregate the demand in India, China, Germany, and other countries to justify financially holding so much inventory.
If we had local or regional warehouses, we would only be able to offer a partial offering, because our manufacturers have minimum order quantities, where it does not become financially viable to have a fraction of the products in each of the regions.
In the first year, our focus is making the import process smooth and transparent for Indian customers. Working with partners like Aqtronics, we want even the smallest companies and individual engineers to access our full catalog easily.
Q. With these improvements, should customers expect faster delivery timelines?
A. Speed depends heavily on our carriers, and we are fortunate that major carriers like DHL, FedEx, and UPS operate directly from our building. Shipments are presorted as they come off the line, whether they are going across the US or overnight to India.
These carriers are working to shorten delivery cycles to Europe and Asia. A major focus is reducing time in customs, and as we build more credibility with customs in India, we expect to save several hours or even a full day. Customers tell us that our biggest advantage is turning supplier lead times of weeks or months into a few days of transit.
Q. Does this setup also give DigiKey early insights into warehouse automation and industrial automation trends?
A. Some of our suppliers have visited our warehouse and seen their own products in action. They are used to large factories, but what stands out at DigiKey is that our entire operation is built to break down supplier pack quantities. We provide exactly what customers need, whether it is a single part or one thousand three hundred seventeen parts, because customers want to keep their own inventory low.
Q. Considering your vantage point and insights of both purchasing behaviours and website traffic, what major shifts have you observed in the way engineers, OEMs, and design teams source components today?
A. Traditionally, companies predicted demand based on past purchases. However, technology now moves too fast for that. We also watch early design signals, such as which parts engineers view on our site at the start of a project. We gather similar insight from suppliers by seeing which components customers explore on their sites. This helps us stay aligned with what engineers are interested in. Today, we track many such signals to decide what to stock and to maintain strong availability as demand shifts.
Q. Are you also working on FAE enablement or smart recommendations for existing users leveraging LLMs or GenAI?
A. Since each component represents an engineer’s full design effort, our site must support that entire journey. More engineers now use DigiKey for research, looking for data sheets, reference designs, dev boards, and EDA symbols. We partner with thousands of suppliers to make this information easy to find.
Engineers also want long-term availability and alternatives, so we highlight similar parts to keep designs in production. Search is getting more complex, so we are improving how parameters and comparisons appear and adding tools that make filtering simpler.
Q. How do you see the role of channel partners and distributors evolving and fitting into this new landscape?
A. What has changed is how engineers work, how they get information, and how quickly they can act. Engineers once used pen and paper, then slide rules, calculators, and spreadsheets. Now digital tools give them instant access to information.
Printed data books and manual research have been replaced by fast, searchable resources that let engineers focus on real design work. Channel partners and distributors still play a key role, but today that role is about enabling better information access and helping engineers move faster, not just supplying parts.
Q. Many engineers rely on small local distributors but worry about counterfeit parts. How is the industry tackling this issue?
A. Yes, counterfeiting is probably the one thing that keeps us all awake at night. When you start talking about space, aerospace, or medical, I would not want to be on a plane with counterfeit parts or have something implanted in me that was not authentic.
We are part of an industry association whose core mission is to support authorised distribution. For DigiKey, this is straightforward because we never buy excess or gray market inventory, even if it looks legitimate. Every product on our shelves comes directly from the manufacturer. When an engineer buys from DigiKey, we want them to be certain the component is genuine. We will continue promoting authorised sourcing because it is critical for the entire industry.
Q. From an academic perspective, how important is it to support student and university programs, and what is being done to strengthen those connections?
A. Customer relationships often start early, which is why we support programs like First Robotics. We are strong supporters of STEM and putting technology in the hands of students.
Many of the world’s challenges will be solved by scientists and engineers, so we feel a responsibility to help. Students who learn our tools early often return as professionals.
We work with academics and hobbyists alike. Many hobbyists are new to electronics, and many engineers build personal projects on the side. We support that whole ecosystem, from learners to innovators.
Q. Are there any plans or programs specifically in the pipeline for India?
A. We have learned a lot from the work we do, and we have dedicated teams focused on the academic environment. We already sponsor various engineering schools to promote technology, DigiKey tools, and gather feedback from students and faculty.
That same group will continue expanding internationally, including in India, by partnering with universities and schools that focus on engineering education.
Q. With India’s semiconductor ecosystem growing, what role do you see DigiKey playing in supporting design teams and helping smaller manufacturers reach global markets?
A. Advanced semiconductors are complex, so we work with suppliers and third parties to provide development environments and tools that help engineers understand and use these parts. When new technologies like accelerometers first appeared, they only became practical once engineers could test them in real environments. We aim to provide that support for any advanced device.
So our role is to provide the building blocks, from simple to highly advanced, that help engineers and even small manufacturers in India design, test, and scale their products for global markets.
Q. Are there any success stories of companies that partnered with DigiKey and gained international exposure or were able to scale with your support?
A. SparkFun and Adafruit are good examples from the United States. Both started as DigiKey customers and later became important suppliers. Their goal is to help new engineers by simplifying technology, which aligns well with our mission.
We now carry many of their breakout boards and ecosystem products. They have grown into a hybrid role as both customers and suppliers.
We see the same pattern in test and measurement and industrial control. Some products used in our own warehouse, like sensors, robotic controls, and other assemblies, are now sold through DigiKey as finished goods.
Q. What is the strategic intent behind the white label products on the DigiKey website?
A. There are many companies that are using white labelling as a way to separate from their suppliers, cannibalise, or to create additional margin by cutting out the middleman. That is not the case for DigiKey at all.
For more than 50 years, our focus has been staying connected to customers. Our white label line, DigiKey Standard, offers a small but growing set of essential tools, sourced from top quality suppliers who enjoy creating co-branded products in DigiKey red.
A simple example is the DigiKey ruler. It began as an internal idea. We sent it out as a promotion, but customers asked for more, and it became surprisingly popular. Items like the ruler and other tools keep DigiKey top of mind and strengthen our community. We stay humble. Our customers drive real innovation.
Q. With small online electronics marketplaces growing, do you see them as complementary in helping engineers in remote areas move from local shops to sourcing genuine parts online?
A. I don’t know if many people know that DigiKey’s first website was launched in 1996. Being in a remote region pushed us to adopt digital channels early, and that has served us well.
Online access now allows customers to buy trusted small quantities of components. After years of focusing on large-scale manufacturing, the industry is shifting toward smaller batches and micro manufacturing, where flexibility and variation matter more.
This fits DigiKey’s high mix and low volume model. The old idea that you can have any color as long as it is black no longer applies. Customers want choice, customisation, and authenticity, and online platforms make that possible even in remote areas.
