Seven firms dovetail to crack US market

By SIMON COLLINS

A marketing initiative by seven furniture companies could be a blueprint for other small exporters, says Trade NZ.

Along with a subsidiary company of Fletcher Challenge, the furniture companies have created Furnz, to market New Zealand products in the United States.

Trade NZ executive Jack Stephens said the initiative was an outstanding model for other small exporters.

One member of Furnz, Formway Furniture, of Wellington, has already found a partner to assemble its products in the US.

Others, including Europlan, of Auckland, are using Furnz' network of sales representatives to line up exports direct from their New Zealand factories.

Europlan managing director Paul van Dorsten said his staff could grow from 80 to 110 if Furnz succeeded in developing the American market for the company's desk filing units and large metal cabinets.

"Within the next three years, we see the potential to triple our business," he said.

Furnz president Trevor Swinburne, a Fletcher Building executive who has been based in Austin, Texas since March, has a sales target of $10 million within three years.

"We actually have an urgency about the way we do business in NZ that is somewhat unique in a larger market such as the US," he told the Herald from Texas.

"When you are in a market of 250 million people that is doing relatively well thank you very much, you make few lines but you make tens of thousands [of units].

"In NZ, we make lots of lines in small volumes."

This entailed being very much on the ball in production, marketing and selling.

"You have to move very fast just to stand still in a small market," said Mr Swinburne.

"We generally operate at a faster pace because we make smaller runs."

With its own warehousing and distribution network, Furnz can ship furniture to US customers faster than local American manufacturers.

Next year, Mr Swinburne will move Furnz' US base to Baltimore, where he will share an office with Fletcher Forests.

Even though Forests is being separated from Fletcher Building, he said the two companies would continue to cooperate in the United States "because it just makes good business sense."

He said Fletchers backed the Furnz initiative as an example of the kind of business cluster advocated by American economist Michael Porter.

"We believe this model is able to be replicated in other geographical regions and other industries."

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