Translated material
Office with passion
Furniture suppliers compete not only in pricing policy, but also in the field of services
The ongoing boom in the construction of business centers in Moscow quite logically caused a noticeable rise in the domestic office furniture market. Having increased by 27% in 2005 and reaching, according to official estimates, $444 million, the market for white-collar workplace furnishings continues to grow steadily this year. At the same time, experts note that the matter is not limited to changing quantitative indicators alone or expanding the geography of sales. Obvious leaders, which include, for example, the companies “FELIX”, “Cambio”, “Shatura”, “Fronda”, KRAFT, already recognize that the fight for a client today cannot be won with attractive price offers alone. Banal sales and deliveries of tables, cabinets and bedside tables to newly built offices are becoming a thing of the past. “All large companies offer more or less equal prices for products; it has become difficult to compete only through pricing policy,” says Anton Terentyev, general director of the FELIX company. “Today, competition is taking place mainly in the service area.”When the undisputed leader of the capital’s market speaks about the need to expand the package of services, which, according to marketers from the Italian Institute CSIL, accounts for more than 50% of office furniture sales in Moscow, this clearly indicates a change in the preferences of clients who are putting forward ever new demands on suppliers. This is especially true for clients from the financial and credit sector - banks expanding their branch networks need their partners to keep up with the pace of their development. “We approached the selection of an office furniture supplier with particular passion,” notes Viktor Lunev, head of the regional development department of Rus-Bank CJSC. “The main requirements are that the supplier has its own production, high-quality products, large regional networks, flexible pricing policy, customer loyalty and business reputation.” According to Mr. Lunev, on average, Rus-Bank plans to open four new branches per quarter, and the bank’s experience of cooperation with the FELIX company allows us to expect that timely deliveries of furniture will have an impact on optimizing the timing of their opening.
The head of the administrative and economic department of the Project Finance Bank, Gennady Deev, has similar requirements. “The decisive factor when choosing office furniture for us is, first of all, the optimal price-quality ratio. However, the delivery time is no less important, he explained to Vremya Novostei. -- The efficiency of order execution is a very accurate indicator of the supplier’s commitment, as well as an indicator of his attitude towards the client. Precision is the politeness of not only kings, but also bankers, so we prefer to deal only with reliable partners.”
The need to optimize the delivery time of furniture to partners has already forced many companies, which previously acted only as Russian distributors of products from Western companies, to open their production in our country or neighboring countries. This also provided significant savings without compromising the quality of office furniture, which today is assembled from modern materials and is designed to last on average about ten years. “Now it is possible to select functional and beautiful office furniture made in Russia, and we do not see the need to turn to foreign manufacturers,” admits Mr. Deev. The Moscow Capital CB also refocused on closer suppliers. “We have been working with Italian manufacturers for a long time,” says Pavel Belousov, head of the logistics department of Moscow Capital. “But after they closed the line of furniture that suits us in style and quality, they began to place orders with a Ukrainian company that makes similar furniture under an Italian license.”
Licensed products manufactured in Russia and purely domestic developments offered by leading suppliers are in demand mainly for organizing workplaces for staff and client areas. In addition, furniture companies, taking into account market trends, which today require not only individual design elements, but mainly ready-made solutions for creating efficiently working offices, began to offer holistic design concepts, sometimes including a unified “saturation” of functional furniture both at the head office and and branches. “We are trying to unify our additional offices so that a client, coming to any branch of the bank, feels involved in one organization,” says Mr. Belousov. In turn, Viktor Lunev from Rus-Bank, who believes that furniture is of no small importance in maintaining a unified corporate policy, said: “Our branches acquired a unified style when we equipped them with operational furniture of the “Style” series produced by the FELIX company.
The struggle for executive offices between imports and domestically produced products is only heating up. Analysts from CSIL note the particular hierarchy of the labor market in our country, which also explains the difference in the organization of Western European and Russian offices. If Western companies mainly make do with two types of furniture - operational for staff and business class for managers, then in Russia they also require “first class” furniture to organize the offices of company owners and members of boards of directors. Traditionally, top managers pay attention not only to the quality, ergonomics and aesthetics of office furniture, but also to the manufacturer’s brand. Therefore, apparently, preference will be given to suppliers who are able to provide the client company with both the best price-quality ratio of domestic furniture for crowded offices, and exclusive offers of offices for top officials.