By Ruvini Jayasinghe
A half century of market leadership is an impressive achievement for any business. In the fiercely competitive and rapidly changing furniture industry, dictated to by global demands, only a company who keeps abreast with the pulse of the changing market trends, could survive over 50 years retaining its market leadership.
It is also the total commitment to their business with two large scale state of the art manufacturing plants and huge investments in a range of raw material and skilled human resources, that has been the foundation to establish and position themselves as market leaders and build their brand Alpha.
BMD spoke with Director, Safraz Careem on Alpha’s 50-year journey in the furniture and safe business and its current status in the market.
Excerpts from the Interview:
Q: Your company has an impressive record of 50 years in safes and furniture manufacturing business. What is the key to your success?
Alpha Industries launched in 1963, is a family owned business, started by N.E. Weerasooriya the brother of our current chairman, Mr. SarathWeerasooriya and the uncle of our vice chairman, Mr. PriyanjithWeerasooriya, of Finco Holdings who is also currently MD of Alpha Industries. Alpha Industries is a subsidiary of the multi-disciplined Finco Holdings which has many businesses in the group including Hotels, IT companies, Consultancies, Travel and Trading.
The company launched with office steel furniture and safes, which remains one of our biggest markets. Alpha is the pioneer in safe manufacturing in Sri Lanka and the largest supplier of safes to the banking sector here. Our range includes high security bank and personal safes, data safes, document safes and fire proof cupboards, anti-hold up safes, vault doors and strong doors, safe deposit lockers, and custom designed strongboxes.
A key lesson from inception and our early days was to evolve with the fast-changing demands for office furniture.Our range has now expanded to solid wood and engineered wood like melamine, to cater to current market demands.
It is also the credibility that we have built over the past five decades with our brand Alpha, that has been another key aspect of our success as a furniture manufacturer with a strong brand value. We have been serving our clients for the past 50 years and built up an excellent after sales service reputation over the years. Our customers have built trust and confidence in the quality of us after sales service, which operates 24 hours island wide as much as the quality of our furniture.
Equally important is the fact that we are a manufacturer of furniture not just a trader. We have invested heavily in our facilities in Mattegoda and Palagama and also have 11 showrooms island wide and 70 dealers.
The factory complex consists of three separate buildings, with a total floor area of 150,000 square feet. The equipment for manufacture of steel safes and furniture consists of hydraulic press brakes machines, shearing machines, mechanical guillotines, power presses, tube cutters, and automatic tube benders, pre treatment plant and stove enameling plant together with powder coating plant for finishing.
Our customers have built their confidence on our brand based on our commitment to the industry; We have invested in manufacturing plants, a team of highly skilled craftsmen and top interior designers and a round the clock, after sales service and above all our capability to change with the market trends. Our products are ISO9001 – 2015 accredited.
We have earned the respect and confidence of customers as an established company with a widerange of furniture and interior solutions to cater to every market trends and change.
Q: What are your main products and markets now?
About 20 years ago we began offering interior solutions, undertaking turnkey projects or working with architects and interior designers to execute a given design. The demand for total solutions from the corporate sector, leisure sector, and the condominium market has evolved into a whole new business opportunity for us, taking our business to a completely new and extremely lucrative level.
Businesses, real estate developers and the leisure industry have long been looking for a one stop shop for all their interior solutions. . It is a highly specialized operation involving skilled human resources from designers, to craftspeople and suppliers and we have stepped in to this market offering a total solution to properties on a turnkey basis. Among our clients as top corporate offices like Aitken Spence ltd. Hayleys Exports Ltd. Bank of Ceylon, Peoples Bank, Brandix Apparel Business Centre, Brandix Apparel India, GlaxoSmithKline Beecham, J. Walter Thomson and hotels like Uga Escape Hotels, Asia Leisure Hotels and many more projects in the Maldives in the leisure sector.
So, from manufacturing furniture we have now evolved into a total solution provider for all types of interiors.
We have a fully-fledged team including interior designers, quality/quantity surveyors and supervisors. We have a total of 500 employees in our team.
Q: How has this impacted your production line as most of your furniture is manufactured in your plants?
Yes, most of our furniture is made in our factories.We only import chairs from Malaysia and China and have the largest range of office chairs and are the market leader in chair imports in Sri Lanka with over 100 designs.
To cater to our customer requirements of total solutions we have established several international partnerships with top international brands of furniture manufacturers, which support our turnkey operations. For example, we partner with Haworth, a large top range US furniture maker, Chubb the largest steel safe maker, and most recently we entered into a partnership with India’s Godrej, the country’s biggest furniture manufacturer. With this new partnership with Godrej, we will launch a new line of business for hospital solutions, and educational furniture.
These partnerships have expanded our capacity and given us the reach to go into niche markets and at the same time cater to the top, middle and low end of all major furniture markets in Sri Lanka.
For example, the interiors of our corporate clients HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Microsoft and Oracle are all designed with solutions provided by our partnership with international brand Haworth.
This business expansion has strengthened our leadership position in the market as a brand that caters to changing markettrends and requirements in partnership with global brands.
Q: As a frontline furniture manufacturer what challengesdo you faces and what are your forecasts for the industry’s future?
There is a great opportunity for the industry at present and in the near future with huge real estate infrastructure projects like the Port City project and several more shopping malls and condominium complexes coming up in all major cities. There is a continuous build up of a huge capacity for office space in Colombo district and also in other main cities. Also, corporate clients regularly upgrade their interior solutions in response to world trends in corporate interiors.
So definitely there is huge potential for the furniture and interior solutions industry, with the economic expansion in the city and suburbs.
Our main challenge now is to upgrade technology in our production process to match international trends, standards and prices. The other challenge is hiring skilled labour and retaining them and also training unskilled labour to suit our manufacturing requirements.
Q: The furniture industry does impact the environment in sourcing its raw materials. What is the commitment to sustainability in your company and industry in general?
Our clients now request for more environmentally friendly material for their solutions. For example, we now use low emission E1 boards for our furniture. We are also planning on eliminating plastic from our production process.
As a manufacturer we have witnessed the growing employer concern towards their employees’ comfort and wellbeing and creating a betterwork environment. Office furniture and the interior solutions have had a major impact on employee satisfaction and performance. An open office concept would contribute to a better more friendly employee relationship. Similarly, a properly furnished office and interiors would take care of the ergometric comforts of its employees all of which benefit output, performance and the level of dedication and passion for the job in creating a healthy work environment. Employers order adjustable lumber support chairs for all employees.
We have witnessed a paradigm shift in office interiors and have upgraded our factories with the latest machinery to cater to this trend.
We have separate production lines for each of our products both factory fitted and knock down range, featuring state of the art machinery like power press machines, CNC, DNC and automatic edge benders, panel and circular sawsand slotting machines.
More details of company and its products can be seen on our website www.alpha.lk bmd