Logistics are the key for UK company RS Components, whose Scandinavian head office and storage facility are sited in Copenhagen. When an order clicks in before 5:00 pm, the customer can expect to take delivery next morning whether he is in Denmark, Norway or Sweden.
RS Components A/S’ managing director Kirsty Buxbom explains: “Rapidity of response is the core of our business concept – and Copenhagen is the ideal location for us to facilitate it.”

With 26 subsidiaries in different countries around the world, RS Components is a company with global reach. Add to that an international network of associated distributors and RS Components has a presence in no fewer than 150 countries.
Continues Kirsty Buxbom: “Our catalogue entitled Danish Technicians’ and Engineers’ Guide – known in the trade simply as The Bible – lists 52,000 products, of which we carry 28,000 at our four-storey storage facility here in Copenhagen. And what we cannot supply from here is sure to be available from our main storage facility in Corby, England, which carries no fewer than 130,000 different products.”
If a customer orders a product that is not in stock in Copenhagen, the order is immediately expedited to England. From there the order will be air-freighted overnight. In other words, customers throughout Scandinavia are assured of taking delivery of their orders the day after they are placed. In the majority of cases delivery is via the local postal authorities. From Copenhagen alone we despatch more than 600 packages daily to the three Scandinavian countries.

Rush orders
”Our customers are typically people in development, service and maintenance,” says Kirsty Buxbom. “Orders – of which one-third are placed via the Internet - vary tremendously in size. But the common factor for them all is that we ensure next-day delivery. We are fully aware that people are awaiting their orders, and in some cases every minute lost costs them dear. Mass production output as such is not our target market – that is the wholesalers’ domain.
”In Denmark, Norway and Sweden we have many thousands of customers, ranging from pharmaceuticals giant Novo Nordisk to the Norwegian offshore industry, LEGO, Jutland’s North Sea Aquarium and the self-employed workman on the corner. The product range spans the spectrum from ergonomic toolkits to pneumatics, electronic components, safety equipment, measuring instruments and so on. I know it sounds like a sales cliché to say: We can do anything. But in our case it really is very close to the truth.
RS Components established operations in Denmark and Copenhagen in 1992, and some years later took over the Danish-owned Radioparts company. In 1998 and 2001, RS Components took over its two distribution companies in Sweden and Norway. Today the 62-strong staff at the company’s Scandinavian head office in Copenhagen is responsible for logistics, finance, IT and marketing for the whole of Scandinavia. A further 18 staff work in Norway and Sweden.
Adds Kirsty Buxbom: “For us, Denmark and Copenhagen were initially an easy way to gain access to the Scandinavian market. And precisely because the Scandinavian countries are so homogenous, it was natural to group the entire administrative operation in one Scandinavian head office.
”There was never any question as to where the head office should be located. Right from the outset, Copenhagen has been the natural centre for our activities in Scandinavia. This is where we have our storage facility, and from a purely logistical point of view everything functions optimally from Copenhagen. In addition, despatch costs in Denmark are cheaper than in Sweden and Norway. And finally, the labour market in Denmark is far more flexible than elsewhere.