Furniture Fittings Industry In India



In "Spotlight" we will be discussing the opportunities and challenges that our clients face in various sectors, in conversation with CXOs. This week, we speak to the MD of Blum India Private Ltd., Mr. Martin Herr. Blum is an Austrian company and a global leader in the high-tech furniture fittings industry. Present in over 120 countries already, Blum has ramped up its India operations recently. We caught up with Mr. Martin Herr to discuss the journey of setting up a presence in India and the unique drivers of the Indian retail experience.Get more news about Furniture Fittings Traducir,you can vist our website!

In fact, we had our first shipment to India in 1984 but started regular business with a distributor in the late nineties. An important step for us was the start of the collaboration with Häfele India in 2003. We're happy to continue working with distributors, but we will also be expanding our own team to be even closer to our customers. We are seeing the benefit of being present in an emerging market like India with a much higher growth rate than in most other markets, and we expect this to continue. Trends in urbanization, increasing buying power, and the fact that nowadays consumers do a lot of online research before buying is very helpful to a company like ours. Direct interface with our customers now helps us understand what the market is looking for and how to shape our strategy to keep succeeding. The size and potential of the Indian market is just too big to sit idle or be passive.

The professionalization of the furniture fittings industry has already started and the share of the unorganized sector is decreasing year by year. IKEA's entry into India will also play an important role in this transition. But we need to be realistic: India will remain a trade-dominated market for many years. As of now in the furniture fittings industry, manufacturers are still quite small in terms of volumes, compared to more established markets like Italy, Germany or China to name just a few.

From my experience, Indian designers do like to study and modify international trends. In our globalized world, new ideas spread fast. Having said that, we are constantly monitoring the market to get a feel for local requirements first-hand, so that we can adapt the product portfolio to the changing needs.

When we introduced soft-closing drawers in India many years ago, the initial feedback was that the market would not be mature enough for that. Surprisingly, in no time this feature became standard in India. We want to be trendsetters in the industry and we are working hard to avoid standstills. For example, our Tip-On Blumotion technology, a mechanical opening support combined with our adaptive soft-closing, supports the trend for handle-free furniture. The strategy to keep gaining market share in a country like India is to keep innovating, offer a large portfolio of products and provide good service to customers.