Godrej eyes global furniture alliances

Godrej & Boyce in entering into a slew of tie-ups across the globe, to grow its office and home furniture business. The company is in talks with a furniture maker in Korea, design firms in France and Germany and paint companies in India.

The company is entering the marine furniture segment by tying-up with a Korean company.

"We will supply furniture to all marine institutes and organisations in India. We would tie up with a Korean company by the end of this year for marine furniture manufacturing," said Anil S Mathur, chief operating officer.

The company is also in talks with Indian paint companies to provide interior designing options to potential customers of office and home furniture.

"We would be hiring close to 200 interior designers across India by the end of this fiscal," informed Mathur adding, "designs tend to get obsolete very fast. So we have to keep on renovating and innovating the kind of designs we would provide in furniture."

The company is already in talks with design firms in France and Italy for tie-ups with an investment outlay of close to Rs 15 crore for this purpose. The company has also lined up $3 million for tie-ups in the US and UK for manufacturing office furniture.

"We are already exporting to the US and UK. Now we also want to set up manufacturing plants in these countries," informed Mathur.

The company recently provided furniture to Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) for some Indian Navy vessels built by GRSE. It also plans to introduce a range of furniture for stadiums, hospitals and hotels by the end of this fiscal.

"We are investing Rs 16 crore for manufacturing furniture for the healthcare sector," said Mathur and added that the company was targeting a growth of 33 per cent from the present 25 per cent by the end of this fiscal.

The company has lined up Rs 25 crore for sales promotions this year. "We are making an overall investment of Rs 200 crore at present," said Mathur.

The company is also planning a three-fold increase the number of its showrooms to 90 within the next 3 years from the present 38 in India.