We’re absolutely thrilled with the news that we have won the Interior Monthly magazine award for best overseas furniture manufacturer for the second year in the row – we understand we are the first overseas company to retain this award and one of very few to have won an award two years in a row this year.
The accolade is even more pleasing because we know it’s not just a product award. Of course it’s vital to have the right product and the right pricing structure but it’s recognition also of the service that goes with it and that’s an area that we do work hard on all the time – if you can’t give the back-up support then you’re simply not going to succeed in today’s tough marketplace. It’s also a recognition of the strong relationship our sales team have built up with our customers over the past nine odd years.
The news comes as we start preparing for a busy autumn of shows. We kick off on 15th September with MOW in Germany. This annual factory showroom event is the time when German producers unveil their prototypes for the year ahead and get invaluable feedback from retail buyers – ahead of official launches at Cologne and Birmingham (yes, we’ll be going to the new Furniture Show at the NEC) in January. MOW is closely followed by the AIS event on 16th September – our second – and then this year we are once again heading for the SW to support our agent Andy Birkett at the South West Furniture Show on 16-18th September. We really wanted to demonstrate our support for retailers in the SW and this seemed to best way to do so.
The other news this month is the return of Kai Schwenke as Wiemann export sales manager. Kai departed to pastures new for a few months but the lure of Wiemann proved too much, so lucky for us, he’s back and raring to go again. Stephan Sprick, who took over Kai’s role during his absence, reverts to his behind the scenes role ensuring operations go as smoothly as possible. We hope that this strengthening of the team (over here with Simon joining me also) will be reflected in increased support for customers as the year progresses. We’re also planning a UK sales team meeting in August to introduce the brand new 14-15 UK range catalogue , due out soon.