Al Huzaifa Furniture has certainly earned its distinctive reputation - both as a brand and in its ability to deliver to a customer base with a widely diverse range of expectations, tastes and budgets. "We achieve economies of scale by delivering international design calibre products at affordable prices," says Nensey. "At the back end, it's about leveraging our strengths in sourcing and logistics, translating these into hard savings and passing them on to the customer. At the front end, it's a bit like the fashion business - understanding what your customers want a bit before they know they want it. A key strategic factor of business today is value chains - and we're happy to say that we've got our value chains right."
Supporting this business model is a brand building strategy built on two pillars - distinctiveness and relevance. In terms of distinctiveness: "In an environment of safe, conservative advertising, we wanted to stand out and create a brand with buzz - something that gets noticed, talked about - and most important, creates a 'fingerprint' for the brand," Nensey enthuses. "We wanted a unique look, feel, voice and attitude.
"Relevance comes from knowing your customers - understanding how they relate to your product and what role it plays in their lives," she continues. There's more to our brand than merely decorating a space -there's a certain intimacy shared between product and owner. This emotional glue was crucial to our strategy - to reflect it in our advertising, nourish it and live up to it through our products. This is what our marketing strategy is all about."
Broadening market opportunities
A recent development for the company is the introduction of a Projects and Interiors department, catering specifically for property developers. Nensey explains the rationale behind the move.
"Real estate developers see a growing need and opportunity to add value and differentiation to their offerings through high-quality furniture and interior outfitting," she explains. "We're also seeing a huge demand from segments such as the hospitality sector, overseas owners of vacation homes, and landlords offering furnished apartments on short term or semi-long term lease. Corporate leasing and ownership of residential property is also on the upswing and calls for high-end turnkey interior solutions. Our Projects and Interiors initiative seeks to extend the Al Huzaifa promise. Differentiation must always come, not from what we do, but how we do it."
Into the future, "Al Huzaifa Furniture occupies the position of 'the fashion brand' in the furniture space," concludes Nensey. "Naturally, our strategy for the future is to remain current, switched-on and truly exciting. Al Huzaifa will always stand for furniture to be passionate about. Furniture represents self-expression. Our focus remains on enhancing our sourcing and logistical strengths - using strategies, tools and techniques that help us deliver to ever-growing expectations."