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Showing posts with label
Office/Contract Furniture Trends.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
Office/Contract Furniture Trends.
Show all posts
OK, I get it Americans are big, fat fatties.
Forbes has praised the TrekDesk Treadmill Desk As “one of the best workplace luxuries anywhere.”
Medical reports and studies have focused on rising obesity rates and ill health caused by “Sitting Disease,” a term that includes syndromes and diseases caused by sedentary lives. While the financial and productivity risk to American business is understood, affordable solutions to the problem have proven to be a challenge.
Forbes.com, spotlighting office innovations, praised the TrekDesk Treadmill Desk as a way to restore health and lose weight.
“We are pleased by Forbes recognition as to the tremendous health benefits attributable to walking and working with a TrekDesk, however based on recent medical evidence we would replace the word luxury with necessity,” says TrekDesk founder Steve Bordley.
While this cool, healthy desk sounds really neat...I'd rather sweat off my double quarter-pounder with cheese in the gym and not in the office.
Michael A. Dunlap & Associates recently released the results of its quarterly MADA/OFI Trends Survey, designed to measure the business activity of the office furniture industry and its suppliers. This survey was completed in January.
Survey results include:
*Gross shipments have improved, but order backlog has declined
*Employment is steady (but below 50), while hours worked has increased above 50 for the first time since October 2008
*Capital expenditures and tooling expenditures declined significantly in the 4th quarter of 2009
*New Product Development has increased significantly
*Raw material costs and employee costs have risen, but not to alarming levels
The Personal Outlook Index remains below 50, but with little change from the October 2009 Survey
“I’m a little disappointed in the results this quarter. It’s a real 'mixed bag.' I was expecting to see improvements in order backlog and personal outlook. I am surprised in the decreases in capital expenditures and tooling expenditures, but I think this will bounce back in the next quarter. The low Personal Outlook index puzzles me, but I think that OFM’s (office furniture manufacturers) are more optimistic than suppliers or service providers. That’s the norm,” said Michael Dunlap.
The Furniture Buying Index fell two points this month to a reading of 57, according to America’s Research Group.
“… more consumers have put discretionary spending on a complete and total hold,” Britt Beemer, chairman of the group, said.
The Furniture Buying Index is compiled each month by America’s Research Group from interviews with 5,000 to 8,000 consumers across the country.The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association is forecasting a continued slowdown for the office furniture industry.
Orders and shipments of office furniture for the first quarter of 2009 came in below expectations, according to the association, which recently refined its forecast model to better reflect the image of some of the model’s drivers and improve accuracy.
The domestic market should improve as 2009 progresses, but recovery for the rest of the world will be slower.
Projections as of late May are:
*2009U.S. Production: $8.0 billion, a decrease of 28.6 percentU.S. Consumption: $9.4 billion, a decrease of 27.4 percent
*2010U.S. Production: $8.2 billion, an increase of 2.8 percentU.S. Consumption: $9.8 billion, an increase of 3.9 percent
Inspired by the playfulness of an orange peel, Varier Furniture is unleashing its Peel Club chair at NeoCon, June 15-17.
This chair is more than good looking—it’s a pleasurable experience for the body. Goodbye chair butt??! The organic shape allows users to vary their sitting position while lounging, reading, listening or plotting evil (my personal favorite).
The ergonomic chair has been wildly popular in the European contract market, selling more than 55,000 units in 10 months. To translate: If you don’t like this chair, then you’re not as sophisticated or cool as our chain-smoking, swatch car driving, and beret wearing brethren across the pond.
The Peel Club is made from 100 percent recycled materials and is available in eco-friendly wool and hundreds of color and fabric combinations.
Apparently more than furniture making is on the mind of top brass at KI.
The former president of the Green Bay manufacturer has filed a lawsuit claiming his was wrongly fired in May 2008 after confronting his boss, Richard Resch, CEO and “philanthropist” about his repeated affairs with female staffers, according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Roderick Ganiard makes the claims in the lawsuit against Resch that at least five women have brought sexual harassment complaints against KI, and that Resch forced him out after he led the company to record sales. It also claims that Resch’s alleged relationships with female employees disrupted day-to-day operations. Ganiard seeks several hundred thousand dollars in lost wages and benefits he claims he was denied as well as unspecified punitive damages.
Attorneys for Resch deny the claims, according to court records.
The lawsuit’s timing also could affect a potential sale of KI. In the current economy, many office furniture manufacturers are laying off workers, cutting plants and scaling back product offerings. However, Resch and KI are no strangers to sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuits. This sounds like great fodder for a reality show or at least a Lifetime movie of the week.
Why so grim? Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s press conference cronies look like they just witnessed the killing of the world’s last panda bear. Instead the City of Chicago, ComEd and various Chicago business leaders launched two environmental projects, the Green Office Challenge and Earth Hour, at the OFS Brands showroom in the Merchandise Mart.
The Green Office Challenge encourages tenants and operators of high-rise office buildings to save energy, increase recycling and water efficiency and reduce paper consumption. OFS Brand’s office furniture showroom has improved its recycling program for office materials including paper, electronics, light bulbs and construction materials, which is diverting 748 tons of materials from landfills per year. As a result, the showroom has achieved LEED Gold Certification.
Earth Hour to be held on March 28 is a nationwide event in which lights are turned off for one hour to call attention to the fight against global climate change. In 2008 more than 2.8 million Chicago-area residents turned out their lights for Earth Hour, which resulted in a 7 percent reduction in electricity usage during that time. Represent!
According to Daley, more environmentally efficient office buildings are critical to helping Chicago reduce its impact on the planet’s changing climate.
Special note: No pandas were harmed during the writing of this blog.
When sales soften many office/contract manufacturers follow the same playbook. Most companies drastically reduce fixed and variable costs, which are followed by mass layoffs from the top down. Many also pull advertising and delay or kill product development and new products. If this is your game plan to ride out the latest recession, you might want to rethink your strategy.
According to an office/contract furniture manufacturer study from Velocity Partners, it has identified four key traits of successful small and middle-market companies.
1. Design furniture that differentiates and defines your brand and does not just fill a gap in the product portfolio.
2. Eliminate or sell any product lines, services and other activities that do not add value to the brand or company.
3. Focus on market segments that provide opportunity for growth and differentiation. Sell a solid brand and products in a new market segment today.
4. Focus on matching the right: designs, A&D specifications, end-user customers and products.
Velocity Partners reviewed the 2001-2002 recession through post-recession performance of 12 North American office/contract furniture companies with sales between $15 to 30 million that were profitable in 2000.
