Situation

A large European buying house engaged in import of home furnishing materials from India was looking at setting up an office in India, which could manage Quality Control (QC) issues, import/export procedures with the cargo/airlines, including managing warehousing, supply chain and delayed delivery problems. Until now, the client depended on an ‘agent’ who would ensure QC issues with large fabricators and vendors who would manufacture home furnishing materials including linen, table ware, towels, bedroom accessories, bath ware and kitchen ware.

Challenges

The client had limited knowledge of the Indian home furnishing trade and wanted a dependable interim manager, who would not only set up an Indian office for them, but also advise the client on the location of the office within India, number of people to be hired, setting up of ‘Site-offices’ at vendor factories to be able to tackle the huge Quality Control and delayed delivery issues faced by the client.

Action

The Confiar Global Interim Management team searched for an experienced professional who had more than 25 years of experience in import and export of home furnishing material to European countries. The candidate had immense experience of India set-up, since he had established an Indian office for numerous European companies in India within the same industry domain. The candidate’s experience in the industry of home furnishing coupled by grass root level quality control experience helped the client set up their office in India within a short span of four and a half months.

Confiar Global’s collaboration with the European client was very fruitful starting from the search of candidates, selection process, assisting the client in going through the ‘business plans’ and presentations prepared by the prospective candidates. Much emphasis was given to selection of the interim manager who could help the client ‘set-up’ the Indian office at a record time to avoid financial loss being faced by the client.

Results

After joining, the selected candidate established the legal entity for the client in India in a record time, managing all compliances as laid down by law. Thereafter he helped recruit ‘On Site’ quality control supervisors, logistics assistants, cargo booking agents and a small team of young enthusiastic executives who managed the vendors, controlled the timelines, and establishes business relations with the vendors in various parts of India.

The results at the end of six months were unexpected. The client noticed that all their consignments from India were ‘On-time’, with no rejections for Quality. And the candidate prepared air-tight Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to be followed for all future consignments for export.