Moving into global markets Willi Schillig

MOVING INTO

GLOBAL MARKETS

Willi Schillig is famous for its stylish and comfortable leather furniture. Joseph Altham interviewed W.SCHILLIG’s CEO, Erik Stammberger, to find out about a company that has applied German engineering to the manufacture of sofas.

W.SCHILLIG is based in Ebersdorf, near the German town of Coburg, and has been making furniture since 1949. W.SCHILLIG claims to make only the finest leather furniture, and the company’s sofas typically sell for between €2000 and €3000. Consumers are willing to pay this much for traditional German attributes like well-thought-out design, solid construction and first-class workmanship. “Our core competence is our extreme reliability,” says Mr Stammberger. “If you look at the market where we operate, you will find very few sofa makers who sell worldwide. It is German quality and reliability that has helped us to achieve our percentage of export sales.”

Comfort

W.SCHILLIG’s upholstered furniture undoubtedly looks classy, but the styling is always in harmony with practical considerations. The number one priority is comfort. “A sofa is a key piece of furniture. It is the centre of the living room and a place where people want to feel at their ease.” Comfort is built in to the design of, for example, the “enjoy” and “brooklyn” sofas that the company showed 2011 at the international furnishing show, imm Cologne and the Hausmesse. The “enjoy” sofa is equipped with adjustable arms and back, and the seat depth can also be altered.

The USA is W.SCHILLIG’s largest export market, and sofas like “relaxx” and “humphrey” evoke the timeless appeal of classic American design. In general, W.SCHILLIG’s furniture tends to have what Mr Stammberger calls a “cosmopolitan look” that can be appreciated as much in Hong Kong as it is in New York.

Willi Schillig Polstermöbelwerke GmbH & CO. KG

Am Weinberg 20-22 96237 Ebersdorf-Frohnlach

Telefon +49(0)9562 / 37 - 0 Telefax +49(0)9562 / 37 - 5 00

E-Mail info@schillig.de Internet www.schillig.com

Insisting on the best

A large proportion of the manufacturing at W.SCHILLIG is still done by hand. According to Mr Stammberger, this is the only possible approach if the company’s high standards of quality are to be maintained. “There are important processes like sewing and cutting that have to be done manually. Making a high-quality sofa demands both attention to detail and the best possible raw materials. For making the frames we use kiln-dried beech wood, which is strong but flexible and causes no problems with humidity.”

Leather is one thing that differentiates a luxury sofa from a cut-price alternative. W.SCHILLIG always makes sofas from natural leather and often needs as many as four cowhides to produce a single sofa. “If you buy cheap leather, it will be scuffed and split, but we use only the best rawhides. As a rule we obtain them from Brazil or Italy, which has a strong tradition of tanning. Right now we are using about 2000 cowhides per day.”

A W.SCHILLIG sofa is built to last. To prevent the seat of the sofa from sagging, W.SCHILLIG uses nosag and coil springs rather than elastic webbing for the lower suspension. The hardwood frames of the sofas are constructed for optimal stability. “A lot of firms will just staple a frame together, but our sofas are double doweled, glued and stapled.” Sofa and chair covers are stitched together by the company’s diligent seamstresses. “We do a lot of contrast stitching, like baseball glove stitching, which stands out through the use of heavy threads in contrasting colours. This only works visually if the seam is really straight, so our seamstresses have to be very good.”

Going global

W.SCHILLIG remains firmly rooted in Ebersdorf, but the company now has factories in the Czech Republic, Hungary and China as well. W.SCHILLIG is enlarging its Hungarian factory near Lake Balaton, with the aim of increasing production capacity by 50 per cent. “In Hungary we produce furniture for more price-sensitive target groups.”

Mr Stammberger was himself responsible for establishing W.SCHILLIG’s factory in China. His experience suggests that if they have the patience, even medium-sized companies can open up opportunities for themselves in emerging market economies. “Because of its infrastructure and legal system, China is certainly a complicated environment compared to Europe. In order to set up the new production site, I was spending one week of every month in China over a period of five years. All the same, building the factory was a wonderful experience.”

Around 40 per cent of W.SCHILLIG’s sales are for export, with over 20 per cent of output now going to countries outside continental Europe. As it seeks to internationalise both production and sales, Schillig is following a distinctive strategy. “Our factory in Shenzen makes furniture for the American market, but the furniture that we sell to East Asian countries comes from our German factory because ‘made in Germany’ is what the Asian customers really want.” According to Mr Stammberger, there is a growing demand for high-quality sofas from the Asian middle classes. “At this point the Chinese middle class is just starting to make money. In countries like China, Malaysia or South Korea, our cosmopolitan designs appeal to people who have enough money to pay for a high-quality product but who still want something that represents good value.” n