Company profile harkel office furniture ltd marketing essay

ContentsCompany ProfileHarkel Office Furniture Ltd. Was founded by Kelly Klerer in 1979 (Harkel Office- About, 2012) almost 33 years ago, it’s a family run business. Harkel was started on a small scale business in two locations now providing services across Canada and overseas including South America and U. S. Harkel office Showroom is located on 1743 Creditstone road, Vaughan, Ontario l4k 5×7 905. 417. 533 and the sales office is located at: 49 Mary Street, Barrie, Ontario L4N 1T2T 705 792 6671  . Harkel always stayed one step ahead of modern office requirements, trends and systems. Harkel Office is based on two fundamental principles that are: Superior Customer ServiceEstablishing Successful relationship with clients. Harkel creates customized solutions for their client’s office environments of all sizes and workstations. That’s the Harkel Difference as an office solution provider. These principles guide the employees on how to work with clients and their need approach. The distinctiveness of every business lies in providing single source solutions. Harkel follows the six factors which drive to deliver the best customer experience are as follows: (Harkel Office- About, 2012)Trust: Reliability: Responsiveness: Empathy: Assurance: Delivery: (Harkel Office- About, 2012)The company’s estimated annual sale is around 20 million per year. The major products of Harkel Furniture are: Seating, Case Goods, Systems, Tables, Filing and Storage, Accessories, Movable wall system.

Industry Profile

Harkel lies in the office design industry which has been flooded with new trends. Canada holds the 5th largest position of furniture exporter of in the world. The Canadian furniture industry for B2B comprises; office and institutional furniture (40. 8 percent), wood kitchen cabinets and counter tops, (17. 9 percent) and blinds and shades (2. 8 percent) (Furniture Industry, 2012). The industry operates at 3 levels (manufacturers, distributors, retailers). Canada’s entire furniture industry is represented by 3 associations: The Quebec Furniture Manufacturers’ Association, The Ontario Furniture Manufacturers’ Association andFurniture West (Furniture Industry, 2012)These associations have formed the Canadian Council of Furniture Manufacturers to represent the industry nationally. Canadian furniture industry is booming and sales are spiked up by 2. 5% in 2008 (The Furniture Industry in Canada, 2009). Industry is facing major trends because of so many reasons which are as follows:

Strong Economy

As reported by Statistics Canada Canadian consumers spent one of every $10 towards fixing, furnishing, and decorating their homes. Since 2006 this rate has been increasing because of the increase value of the Canadian dollar, lower sales tax, strong Canadian economy, and the collection of furniture and other home products that retailers continue to offer. (The Furniture Industry in Canada, 2009)

Modern Life style

The Canadian government took a practical approach to increase the understanding in the furniture products market and to promote a modern lifestyle among Canadians. Decrease in GST in year 2009 has helped the manufacturers to offer their products at a good price while also helping Canadian consumers increase their purchasing power. Moreover, with the help of Bank of Canada to government by exercising monetary policy resulted in the cutback of interest rates to 4. 75%, which ultimately means less borrowing loan costs for Canadians. (The Furniture Industry in Canada, 2009)

Consolidation

Consolidation means bring more people together in less space. Most of the businesses are saving the space today by efficient space managements. Most companies are now acquiring the services of office furniture and layout designers to help them in meting their office requirements within budget constraints.

Innovation in Office Furniture Designing

Now with the introduction of User Friendly Office Furniture, which is a unique invention, allows the user to sit stand by pressing a button or lever under them. Companies are booming their sales by offering customized designs as well with the requirements of companies.

Customized Designing

In this trend, Companies now wants to design their workplaces to show the atmosphere and values in which they work or wants their employees to learn and show company values. For example, open spaces, being colorful, not having a closed-door policy and using glass doors. etc. Harkel Office furniture’s major competitors are: Steelcase: founded in 1912, it’s a public company previously known as Metal office Furniture Company, now have more than 16, 400 employees and listed in New york stock exchange. (Steel Case, inc. , 1999)Teknion: Teknion started working in the early 1980s; their clients list includes primarily large and mid-size national and multi-national corporations and government institutions. Headquarters is in Toronto, Ontario; U. S. headquarters are in Mount Laurel, New Jersey; Teknion has sales offices, showrooms, manufacturing and warehousing facilities in Canada, the U. S., the U. K., India, Russia and Malaysia. (Corporate Overview, Teknion, 2013)

Major Customer

The major customers of Harkel includes Humber college, Petro Canada, GMAC, Jaguar, Land rover, TOYOTA, Mazda, Major Law firms, University of Toronto, Georgian college. Etc.

Humber College

Humber College is one of the largest college of Canada serving 22, 000 full time and 56, 000 part time students which is expanding day by day (Corporate Info). They have three campuses in Toronto and constantly upgrading and expanding them to create further space for classes to facilitate students in order to improve their infrastructure. Harkel is working with Humber from last few years to serve the College’s day-to-day needs 
of servicing, upgrading and expanding 
its present facilities and providing layout designing solutions etc.

Alzheimer Society

The Alzheimer Society consolidate its Canadian, Ontario and Toronto offices under one roof in mid-town Toronto with Harkel. In partnering with Harkel, X-Design created a space for the Alzheimer Society that is: Flexible, Dynamic, Congenial, Airy.

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press (OUP), requirement was a new space to boost its business effectiveness and the same time maintain their historical values with a modern look image. Harkel designed Modern work stations and private offices and Inscape were utilized to address flexibility and storage issues. Offices designed with glass fronts to allow light penetration and Meeting rooms and collaborative space were positioned adjacent to departments.

BD Canada

BD–Canada, is one of the leading global medical technology company, was shifting with a space requirement of 27’ high ceilings of a large and open environment to more conventional office space with a 9’ high t-bar ceiling. The requirement of Furnishings required providing an ” airy” open sensation but also an equal amount of storage. Harkel with the help of Brent Kingdon’s design and creative expertise from TAC Facilities Group Inc. worked to accomplish an aesthetically beautiful, well operational and under budget solution.

Profile of Salesperson

Name of the salesperson: Mr. Jason Harvey

Academic Background:

Diploma in Business Administration and MarketingBachelor in Mechanical Engineering

Past Experience:

Severed as Restaurant Manager in The Keg for 12 years, Hospitality Industry

Current Job Duration:

Working with Harkel Office Furniture in Sales department from last 11 years

Job Responsibilities:

Making SalesFinding and prospecting new clientsNegotiate with clientsDevelop sales proposalsPresent sales contractsConduct market research and surveysParticipate in sales eventsMonitor competitors, market conditions and product development

Major Customer/Account: Humber College

Number of salespersons in the organization: 10 salespersons

Organizational Chart:

Prospecting Methods

According to Mr. Harvey the sales person of Harkel, Prospecting is very important he says that he give more focus on creating a new potential customer because it’s the requirement of the furniture industry. If any customer purchases from them it will going to last 10, 15 years which is a normal age of furniture. He can not rely on existing customer; he has to prospect new ones as well. Moreover, he said that as Harkel is involved in B2B sales so he has to find new prospects to fit in their scale and have the money to become their customers. He spends almost 10 -15% of his time in prospecting as it is very important for him and his company. The prospecting methods that he uses are as following:

Direct mail

Most of time he use this method, in which he send a direct mail to the customers and if it feels them compelling enough he might have an open opportunity.

Referrals

In this method he built up a good relationship with a person who provides him information about the potential customers. As he explained that Humber college was referred to him by one of his friends working on installation in their

Referrals from customers

Sometimes his current customers referred him to others because of the quality work they provided.

Online Search

In this method he search online, read news papers to know which companies are shifting or growing bigger, moving to new place or planes to expend, then he contact the company try to make them his potential customers. He qualifies his customer by evaluating customer’s needs, willingness to buy the product and customer’s capacity means customer’s financial capability to buy the product.

Cold calling

You fear it. You dread it, in this method Mr. Harvey knows whom he can make his client, he has their contact information he can call them directly to let them know about Harkel and their products offer to make them a potential customer.

Pre-Approach

Pre-Approach includes all things that a salesperson requires to prepare before delivering the presentation to the client. He worked on the information about prospect company, their products and markets, their customers, actual decision maker, who handles the sales process?, who can influence it? Does the potential volume of sale require a call, letter, or email? Etc. Then he dressed up in a good manner for meeting. He brought his portfolio along with him which was containing all the documents that were related to the product like product brochure product configuration etc. In the pre-approach Mr. Harvey usually does the following things: At first, he analyzes the information about the prospect for instance what might be their requirement and what type of industry they are working in by searching online on company’s website or going through previous business news, reports, sales records etc. Then, as he told us that he study their products range he can offer or has the idea in mind that they might require this product also to work on the specific needs for instance they might have a large space or vey small but requirement is to accommodate more seating or filing etc.. More product information will help to answer the question related to the requirements. At last step, Mr. Harvey told us that he rehearse his presentation as a homework. He practices the whole presentation style with mental toughening and visualizing the meeting or presentation once or twice before presenting it in front of the audience.

Approach

The presentation for job shadow project took place in Humber College in the conference room of Humber with Mr. Jason Harvey and Ms. Rebecca Muyal, Project coordinator On Monday March, 11; 30am, Facilities Planning and other main persons of Humber College. Harkel Furniture Ltd.’s customer was Humber College Institute of Technology. It is a very well Know college. Mr. Jason first introduces himself and his company he started off by giving an overview and a brief description about the company. He first started talking about different types of product that they carry in their business. After the entire introduction took place and the Customer got a sign of familiarity Mr. Jason gave a brief description about the product in this case it was ” Silica Fabric”.

Need Discovery

Mr. Harvey told us that Need discovery is more important than any other step in the sales cycle; it’s the second step in creating a sales presentation also one of the greatest challenges. It includes asking strategic questions, determining needs and final product solution. He prepares for it by planning his questions he is going to ask in a sequence to gain information in a logical manner, and it includes more requests for information than opinions and Contain fewer statements of disagreement with the client. Four key objectives of questions was to discover the prospect’s ” hot button”, To establish purchase criteria, To agree on a time frame for completion of negotiations, To gain agreement on the problem before beginning the actual presentation of benefit. Gear questions to the benefits of your productClosing is directly linked to questions we analyzed the sales presentation between Humber College and Mr. Harvey we observed the following things: He was ” Active Listening” and intensely involved in the conversation and it was visible by the interest and his gestures that he used. After the problem was analyzed Mr. Harvey proposed the selected solution of product for them.

Presentation

Mr. Harvey presented a fabric that they launched recently that is called Silica. It is a high quality Silica is a Best of NeoCon award winner and the industry’s first and only environmental alternative to vinyl and polyurethane. It is equally stylish fabric.

Product ” Silica Fabric” on Lounge View

Silica Alloy

Features

Benefits

PatternSilica ©2010ColorCanyonBackingPolyesterFlame ResistanceCA Bulletin 117 Sec. EDurability365, 000 D. RMaintenanceWS; Bleach Cleanable (4; 1)Reduced Environmental ImpactGreen guard children and schools Air quality certificateSilica fabric is made up of 51% silicone and 49% Polyester; zero PVC and zero solvents. One of the unique performance characteristic of silica is that ink-erasable with water and inherently anti-microbial and anti-bacterial. Harkel furniture ltd. Sales persons use different types of selling and presentation tools for product display during the process and they are as follows:-Showroom visit: this tool is highly used as customer can actually walk in the showroom and see the material and feel the product in person to know the quality and also will it fit to the standard he/she wants. Presentation package: – it includes power point, catalogue, brochures, quotations of price, 3d design by using the software Auto CAD which modifies the sample design by the color and texture according to customer needs, 2d, and 3d designs are presented after customers need are identified to show the design after it will be completed or deliver to the office. But for the presentation given to Humber College Mr. Harvey used presentation package tools which contain power point explanation of the product, Fabric material color catalogues photos that they created for the product period. Yes the presentation was very appropriate and Mr. Harvey very well explained the product to the buyer.

Negotiations

Negotiation means working to reach an agreement that is mutually satisfactory to buyer and seller. It has to be win-win situation for the long- term results. There are certain issues that arise in front of Mr. Harvey which included the ” Price” issue. Ms. Rebecca co-coordinator, Facilities Planning Humber College putted her point that the price of the fabric is too high for them to accept the deal and crossing the budget constraint that they have for the purchase. Mr. Harvey used the ” Best Alternative To Negotiate Agreement” which was Mr. Harvey offered to create a third party agreement between Humber College, Harkel Furniture Ltd. and The Manufactures company. In this process Harkel offered 10 % discount on the fabric. Yes, the situation was handled effectively by Mr. Harvey as the offer got accepted by the Humber College and the sale between the two parties took place.

Closing Techniques

No matter how hard you work, how well you prospect and qualify and regardless of how well you design solutions for customers, if you are weak in closing sales, you will suffer in your career. Closing of a sale is like an incremental agreement which is gradually moving the customer to total commitment by gaining cumulative with sales call. After the negotiation part completed and the offer was discussed Mr. Harvey used assumptive close technique as he asked for few things like when to sign the contract according to the convenience of the buyer, when is the deposit being made this was done when Mr. Harvey realized that the trust is built with the Humber College and noe deal is final. During the discussion about the price we got the closing clue that the presentation is now coming to its end which was observed by the prospect that is Humber College preparing to make a buying decision. Mr. Harvey used the supportive active communication style as he was actively listening to the client maintaining good eye contact and answering all the questions and the statements that the client was arising. He realized the client that they are buying quality product which worth in actual the value of its. Mr. Harvey successfully used his closing techniques. He seemed pre- prepared for the presentation of the product and the solutions and answer’s related to the same.

Servicing the Sale

The after sale service is the process in which a variety of activities that take place during and after the implementation stage of buying process. There are five follow up methods they are as follows: Personal Visit: It means meeting the customer in person to make them aware about your new products and services or also follow up their experience of using the product. Telephone: Maintaining contact with customer through telephonic conversion to inquire about any change or the experience etc.. Email message: Exchange of communication through e-commerce i. e. via using email messages by sending electronic flyers informing them about new products or sale etc. Letter or card: Exchange of communication through letters or cards. Mr. Harvey used three different formats to maintain after sale service, they are as follows: Personal Visits: Humber College and Mr. Harvey decided to meet on Monday of every week in order to discuss the product issues if they have or to make them aware about their new products. Humber College is also the major account of Mr. Harvey. Telephone: Mr. Harvey provided his contact information i. e. his personal cell-phone number so that any time if there is any issue there problem can be solved. Email message: Mr. Harvey indicated that emailing is the best and the fastest mode of communication to him as his 85% of the work is done through emails rather than using telephone and instant reply is assured.

Compensation Package

The compensation package for Sales persons in Harkel Furniture Ltd. is the fixed percentage based on the sales; there is no fixed or basic salary but 100% commission based system. If any of sales person does not meet the target from their sales they can borrow money from the company and once they start making commissions they deduct some percent from their salary every time until the loan is paid completely. There is a bonus structure of every 6 months. The commission range for salespeople in the company can start from 50, 000$ per annum and it can go up till 200, 000$ based on their skills and the amount of sale they do.

Recruitment policy and Sales Training

The process of recruiting in Harkel Furniture Ltd. is majorly done through:-Online through official website.- Job posting websites like Workopolis, Monster . comThe requirements for the qualifying candidates are as follows:-Qualification: Minimum High School Graduate, College Diploma , Practical training is an advantage.-Experience: No experience is required as training is given to each and every new employee. You can start fresh in the sales career also depends upon how self motivated is the person. Attribute: organized, flexible, available full time, active listener, good verbal skills. Sales training is provided both initially and beyond as the company upgrades its services . During the initially training process an employee gets to spend time in each departments and at last in the sales department, monthly meetings are held and presentation are given , deletion and modification of the product occurs so employees training duration last for 3 months.

Learning:

Dipakharjani: With this Job Shadow opportunity I learned about the B2B sales skills requires for a sales person including the knowledge too for the product offer and to be prepared for customer’s questions to clear any doubt, make him/her believe that doing business with them is really worthy. Harkel Furniture Ltd. Seems a nice platform for me to explore sales field and I think I have a chance to build a career in this field, Yes I would definitely like to work for them. Jaspreetsingh: This job shadow project helped me to learn about all the skills and requirements to become a sales person and what are the skills requires to sale in B2B market. Knowledge, communication skills and building customer satisfaction are the vital elements for a successful sale and building a career in the field. Yes, I would like to work for Harkel Furniture Ltd. It is a whole new field B2B market for me to explore and they provide very nice opportunities for fresh graduates.