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The Christchurch company Fi-Glass Boats has been at the leading edge of the marine industry since company founder Frank Simpson became one of the first New Zealand manufacturers to embrace GRP technology.
Now Fi-Glass is doing some more pioneering. Frank's son Griff is now helming the company and has just started selling boats to a new market for this country. Russia.
It is a story that started when British businessman Ron Dards relocated to Canterbury aged 59, bought a lifestyle block and quickly became bored. He had operated in the human resources field in Britain so he started a company to do recruitment work here.
He also decided to learn a new language, Russian. This offbeat interest put him in touch with the small emigre Russian population in Christchurch. Besides quickly getting to grips with the language, Dards soon became aware of the emerging sector of super-rich in the Soviet.
"It is now a vibrant consumer society with an emerging middle class," says Dards. "There are 150 million people there and they all want a slice of the good life. Moscow alone has 25 billionaires - two more than London - and around 30,000 millionaires.
"I felt there was an opportunity to get some New Zealand consumer products into that market. I also did a lot of research on how best to do business over there and quickly discovered the only way was face-to-face. They want to meet you and look you in the eye. You can't do business with them unless you go there."
First he scored a deal to sell quality leather gloves but that went belly up when the manufacturer couldn't supply the quantity the buyer required. "He couldn't deliver in a year what the Russians wanted in a month," says Dards, "which illustrates just how big the market is."
The Fi-Glass deal came about through doing the groundwork, finding an agent on the spot familiar with the marine market there and getting the paperwork right, Dards says.
A Russian distributor paid cash up front for six Fi-Glass runabouts and says he will be selling 500 a year within five years. That adds up to a lot of roubles with the first shipment of boats worth from $30,000 to $80,000 each.
Simpson says he would not have considered the Soviet deal had he not perfected the containerisation of boats for export to service his growing Australian market. The research he and Dards have done convinced him Fi-Glass boats are well suited to Russian summers. American boats tend to be open decked because of their warmer waters and European craft tend to be totally enclosed. The New Zealand boats are halfway between.
Exploring the Russian scene proved a costly exercise for the Christchurch boatbuilder.
"Over there you need a driver and a translator," he says. "So after paying for everyone's accommodation and food plus other expenses like translating brochures I didn't end up with much change out of $40,000."
The check-out-the-market exercise proved worthwhile and Simpson was particularly impressed by the formal and serious approach the Russians took to business.
Dards, the Russian speaker, says the business-people there are formal. They like contracts to be specific with every 'i' dotted and 't' crossed.
"We had to translate our kiwi contracts and almost every word was queried to ensure we got it right. That trip was a great preparation for future business which I am sure will materialise into serious roubles."
Dards is 73 now, but is still busy honing his trading skills to help New Zealand business people, especially small businesses, hoping to get into exporting.
* Contact Ron Dards on 03 322 1108 or email: ida12@xtra.co.nz
