LOCAL air-conditioning specialist Ford & Doonan has hatched plans to expand the business into Western Australia’s regional areas as well as the eastern states.
LOCAL air-conditioning specialist Ford & Doonan has hatched plans to expand the business into Western Australia’s regional areas as well as the eastern states.
Three months ago the business’s owners, Andrew Ford and Kyle Doonan bought getcool.com, an online distribution business that operates predominantly in the eastern states, and plan to launch the business before summer.
“Most of its client base is on the eastern seaboard. It was a soft entry to the eastern states,” Mr Ford, a former WA Business News 40under40 Award winner, said.
“We know Ford & Doonan means something over here, we have been here for 25 years, but to the eastern states it’ll be Ford and who? There is no point in going there as Ford & Doonan, there will be very little traction.”
He said having built relationships with suppliers such as Daikin over 25 years in the business had helped in developing getcool, with current suppliers keen to get involved in the online distribution business.
After introducing the franchise system to their operations in 2001, the business now has five franchises, with Mandurah and Bunbury the only two regional centres with franchises.
The company is now aiming to recruit franchisees in WA’s major regional centres of Karratha, Port Hedland, Geraldton and Broome.
The business partners say their ongoing friendship is a big part in Ford & Doonan’s success.
“We are good friends still. Obviously that is the key, it is rare a partnership lasts so long. We are different personality types. Neither of us is that pig headed where we have to win an argument,” Mr Ford said.
The businesses success can be put down to carving a niche in the market, he said.
The partners recognised the potential in the ducted air-conditioning market for a greater level of design and engineering, and the flexibility that came with this.
While 90 per cent of their business is still in ducted air-conditioning, the pair plans to expand their services into other markets.
“We don’t do evaporative air-conditioning at all and we have very little split systems because the retailers have taken that market. Going to get.cool is a way of getting that market back again off them,” Mr Ford told WA Business News.
“There are so many sectors we haven’t got into yet.
“We could get back into commercial air-conditioning, tendering and that sort of thing. There are so many sectors we are not focused on at the moment but we know we could get into.”
