WORKING with Western Australian jarrah has helped grow a successful business for a family that has only recently arrived in Australia.
The business, Sunrise Furniture Manufacturers, has entered this year’s Family Business Awards in the second-generation category and is run by the Nguyen family who fled Laos in the 1980s to start a new life in Perth.
A cabinet-maker in Laos, Am Nguyen jumped at the opportunity when a business with wood-working equipment was offered for sale. With help from the family’s landlord, Terry Gabriel, who loaned the family some of the money needed to buy the business (with no talk of interest rates or repayment terms), Sunrise Furniture Manufacturers was opened in 1987.
The company has since expanded to take 600 square metres of factory space in Osborne Park and will be moving to a Malaga facility of twice the size next year.
The business chose jarrah because it was similar to the rosewood Mr Nguyen had worked with in Laos.
Director Ky Nguyen said when she and her husband started the business she spoke little English and major suppliers, such as Bunnings, were not prepared to give credit.
The business is now rated as one of Sotico’s (the company that took over Bunnings’ timber business) best customers.
Mrs Nguyen said that in the early days the family had to do everything from sweeping the factory floors to delivering the finished products.
These days the company employs somebody to sweep the floors and has contractors to deliver its products to outlets that include Arthur Murray and Habitat.
Mrs Nguyen said one of the business’s biggest problems was getting reliable trained staff.
The business has 18 workers, nine of whom are family members.
“If I get a new order, I make sure the family can cover it because I know I can rely on them,” Mrs Nguyen said.
That approach has forestalled the business’s push into the export market.
Sunrise was invited to be part of a government trade mission to the US in 1991 but Mrs Nguyen feared such a move would make it unable to meet its obligations to its Western Australian customers.
“Quality and reputation are everything,” she said.
Juan Nguyen, one of the second-generation members in the family business, has his own ideas about the future of the operation.
He is well aware of the jarrah shortage and wants high-quality jarrah furniture to attract more of a premium. He’s also interested in the use of designs that incorporate other materials, such as glass, to highlight the wood.
Entry forms for the 2004 Family Business awards are available from the website: www.familybizawards.com.au
