Design House Partnership

I cant cogitate how much we have changed in a relatively short time. From being an inward-looking manufacturer,we became a customer-focused be after and makeoperation. Now we argon an integrated proceeds provider. Most of our red-hot business comes from the partnerships we have formed with endeavor houses. In effect, we design harvest-times jointly with specialist design houses that have a well-known grunge, and offer them a complete service of manufacturing and distribution.In many ways we are now a business-to-business lodge quite an than abusiness-to consumer company. (Jim Thompson, CEO, belief Design Services (CDS)) CDS had compose one of Europes approximately profitable homeware businesses. Originally founded in the 1960s, the company had hold outd from making industrial mouldings, chiefly in the aerospace sector, and some cheap homeware items such(prenominal) as buckets and dust pans, sold down the stairs the snap brand name, to making in truth high-quality ( expensive) stylish homewares with a high design value.The move into Concept products, The move into higher-margin homeware had been masterminded by Linda Fleet, CDSs Marketing Director, who had previously worked for a large retail reach of paint and wallpaper retailers. Experience in the decorative products industry had taught me the importance of expressive style and product civilizement, even in unremarkable products such as paint. Premium-priced colours and virgin textures would become popular for one or two years, back up by seize promotion and features in lifestyle magazines.The manufacturers and retailers who created and supported these products were dramatically more profitable than those who exactly provided standard projects. Instinctively, I felt that this moldiness also apply to homeware. We decided to develop a whole coordinated range of such items, and to open up a virgin distribution network for them to take care upmarket stores, kitchen equipment and speci ality retailers. Within a year of launching our first new range of kitchen homeware under the Concept brand name, we had all over 3000 retail outlets signed up, provided with point-of-sale display facilities.Press coverage generated an large interest which was reinforced by the product placement on several TV cookery and lifestyle programmes. We soon positive an entirely new market and at heart two years Concept products were providing over 75 per cent of our revenue and 90 per cent of our profits. The price realization of Concept products is many times higher than for the Focus range. To keep ahead we launched new ranges at regular intervals.