United Stationers recently created a new furniture division to help meet the needs of furniture dealers, as well as dealers across other channels who are interested in growing their furniture business. Office Furniture & Design had an opportunity to speak with the president of the new division, Jim Fahey, to find out why United is expanding its furniture presence now and to learn what’s in store for the future.

Office Furniture & Design:  What are your plans for the new furniture division?

Jim Fahey:  The goal of United Stationers’ new furniture division is to help us better serve the needs of dealers who already specialize in furniture as well as those across other channels looking to grow their furniture business.  The new furniture division combines the company’s marketing and merchandising expertise with a nationwide team of dedicated furniture specialists, whose mission is to develop new furniture opportunities—both in products and services—that will provide value to all of our partners; resellers and manufacturers.  Our plan is to refocus our furniture strategy to address the changing market and seek out new growth opportunities.

United Stationers brings a vast pool of resources to the varying furniture needs of its reseller customers, including a broad selection of products, deep inventory, nationwide distribution, quality marketing tools and value-added support services.

Office Furniture & Design:  Why launch the division now, given the current state of the economy and the furniture industry?

Jim Fahey:  From our perspective, the economy is beginning to show signs of a turnaround, which makes this an ideal time for United Stationers to launch a new furniture division. 

The economy aside, we undertook a strategic planning process designed to examine the long-term view of a variety of business segments at United, including furniture.  This process revealed several key learnings that led us to re-focus our overall approach to the furniture market. 

United has long been the industry’s leading furniture distributor.  Taking a close look at this role, it became clear that our focus of primarily supporting transactional business was simply too narrow.  We traditionally sold furniture primarily to office products dealers and national accounts, which meant we had virtually no penetration in the largest segment of the market, contract furniture dealers. 

At the same time, we realized that our role of simply enabling office product dealers to take orders for furniture was short-sighted.  A more strategic approach is to deploy a furniture sales team armed with the tools they need to help dealers develop a furniture business and strategy, like a contract furniture dealer would, as opposed to selling various pieces of furniture as they would toner cartridges or paper. Simply put, we realized that with some relatively minor changes in our business model and go-to-market strategy, we could take advantage of a much broader market opportunity and help our reseller partners do the same.

Office Furniture & Design:  How do you plan to penetrate the contract furniture market and help current dealers effectively enter the market at the same time?

Jim Fahey:  To accomplish this strategy, we are actively building a nationwide team of experienced, dedicated furniture salespeople with focused furniture merchandising, marketing and operational expertise. This team will form relationships with contract furniture dealers, as well as help office products dealers develop a new approach to selling furniture.  This team is responsible for developing new business opportunities and working collaboratively with United’s existing Supply Division sales organization.

United’s furniture account managers will work hand-in-hand alongside manufacturers, furniture dealers, office supply dealers and designers to recommend, specify, and quote jobs and help secure orders from their customers.  Several key sales management appointments have already been made.  Rich Aievoli has been named vice president & general manager of sales; Felton Jones is the sales director for the West region; Michael Pritchard will serve as West area sales manager; and William Miller is our new Central region sales director. We are currently adding to our sales force and expect to make additional personnel announcements in the near future. This veteran furniture sales staff, coupled with our position as the nation’s largest distributor of office products, provides dealers unmatched marketing, merchandising and logistical capabilities.  As a result, we can bring a vast pool of resources to apply to many different furniture needs: broad selection of products, deep inventory, nationwide distribution, quality marketing tools, and value-added support services.

Office Furniture & Design:  How does United’s Alera brand fit into the equation?

Jim Fahey:  Alera is a high-quality product line that’s a great value at an attractive price point, whose success has been building for years. Now, with the launch of United’s Furniture Division and additional selling efforts, there will be more opportunity to expand Alera’s market presence. Alera will not only provide another important product option for contract furniture dealers, but it will also continue to grow as a top-performing investment for United. 

Office Furniture & Design:  How has the market responded to the launch of United’s furniture division?

Jim Fahey:  The response among our dealer base has been very positive.  Many of them recognize that our new furniture division will give them access to skilled furniture resources including project management, design and sales processes as well as an extensive furniture inventory from a wide range of sources. 

Our dealers understand that in today’s business environment, they need to be competitive in furniture, or risk missing out on this important revenue source. This means they have to look for ways to lower their costs, improve their productivity, streamline their supply chains and accelerate their cash flows to address the needs of their customers. We think of United’s furniture division as a valuable resource available to our dealers, allowing them to expand and extend their own capabilities and market reach without the need to make incremental investments in their own businesses at a time when the pace of the market recovery is still uncertain. There are many components of price and margin including all the hard and soft costs associated with doing business. When quantifying the resources, services and product availability that working with United Stationers can offer, the possibility to pick up new customers and boost the bottom line is very appealing.