Reaching out for international success

We had been successfully contract manufacturing for about 30 years, but wanted to change tack and create our own product in order to achieve greater influence over the design, manufacture and sales process.

Looking at the latest developments in commercial furniture internationally, we’d seen that LCD monitor screen uptake was increasingly significantly as people became more aware of their numerous benefits, including better ergonomics, space savings and increased productivity.

When one of our customers asked us to design and manufacture a monitor arm, what has become the Integ range of monitor arms began.

We spent several years and considerable investment getting the design right. We had some in-house design capability, and we also entered into a relationship with Massey University to look at industrial design and bring those influences back into the organisation.

The modular nature of the Integ range gives us a clear advantage over competitors. We can rapidly customise the monitor arm using a Lego style model, which means the original template can, with little physical change, evolve as technology evolves.

Our international growth has come through building relationships with OEM commercial furniture manufacturers, architects, interior designers and project managers.

The flexible nature of our designs means we are more involved in a consultative process with furniture manufacturers. It enables them to design solutions so they can add value to their clients.

These relationships are critical to our success. We are also very strong on achieving delivery the customer wants – that is paramount internationally and also gives us an edge over competitors.

The monitor arm market has started to explode in the last two years. We’ve had to ensure we have a means of capturing information about who is where within an organisation.

People move around and you want to maintain and leverage off those relationships. People like to do business with people they can trust.

It’s important to build relationships as fast as you can.

Following up with contacts in the market within a few months of meeting them at trade shows is vital – you can’t wait until the next year’s event or you’ll miss out.

You need to have a structure in place and capital that allows for regular market visits, which for a small organisation is challenging.