Tomorrow the world
Working closely with NAB, Brisbane-based company Centor Architectural – which specialises in systems for folding doors – has now gone global. Valerie Khoo reports.
Three years ago, Nigel Spork knew it was crunch time. His third generation family business, Centor, had reached a point where they wanted to expand. But to take the company international meant it needed to access funds and have a more flexible structure for its cash flow.
"We were at the limit of how far we could fund the business," says Spork (pictured right), managing director of Centor . "But there was so much opportunity in front of us."
This is where NAB Regional Executive Graham Hickey (pictured left) worked with Spork to find a solution. Hickey says it was a matter of finding the right product mix to suit Centor's goals. "Centor had a vision to expand," says Hickey. "They felt they had reached their ceiling in terms of borrowing capacity with us. It wasn't just a matter of increasing funding but to restructure the whole facility."
NAB transitioned Centor from a debtor finance facility to a trade facility, which provided the business with more opportunities. "We provided the necessary flexibility in our product mix to allow them to achieve their goals," he says.
Transforming the business
Spork joined the family business when he was 30 after a career in the hardware industry in Australia and the United States. "After a few years in a big corporate, one evening over dinner Dad and I were discussing some operational issues he was having in the company and I offered to see if I could help," says Spork. "I had some accrued holidays and took every Friday off for five months to work at Centor."
This eventually led to Spork taking the reins of the business and a process of consolidation, innovation, then expansion.
Centor now has offices in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Last November, Centor also opened its own factory in China, currently employing 10 staff. Spork expects this to increase to 80 employees before the end of the year.
Similar growth has been experienced in Australia. "We used to run our factory 7.6 hours a day and still couldn't keep 21 people busy," says Spork. "Now our factory runs 24 hours a day and there are 124 of us."
Centor's international business has now grown from 2% to 40% of total sales. Most recently, Centor unveiled what it describes as a "world first" – a screen that can be fitted to bi-fold doors. The team at Better Home & Gardens were so impressed they featured the doors on their television show in February. "We spent 19,000 hours of research and development on this new screening system," says Spork.
"After it launched in January, sales exceeded our expectations – which is nice – but frankly I get more motivated sharing our engineers' excitement when they make a breakthrough and then seeing the resulting delight in our customers' faces."
The future is bright
The future still holds a wealth of opportunity, according to Spork. "In the next five years, I expect we'll have a couple more international production plants with multiple branches and brand recognition in international markets," he says. "It can be challenging to have the company running in three different time zones and to try and build a corporate ethos that's consistent in spite of the time, distance and cultures involved.
"NAB is a partner," says Spork. "Of course we give Graham regular information on our finances but we frequently also give him updates on what's happening in all areas of our
business."
Hickey says it's rewarding to be a part of Centor's growth. "I get a kick out of what I see," he says. "When I visited Centor for the first time they laid out their vision on the table of where they wanted to be and the challenges that lay ahead. We wanted to move with them and provide them with the facilities to make it all happen."
Valerie Khoo is a business journalist who writes the Enterprise blog on www.smh.com.au and www.theage.com.au. She is also editor of Business View.