THe furniture and wood market has evolved from its rigid past. Moving with the times, Cyrus Kingdom Development Company Limited, a furniture and joinery company, which has been in existence for 20 years, has looked away from the norm in the sector to become an alternative to imported furniture.
The firm seeks not only to establish itself as a dominant player in the market, but also as a net exporter of indigenous products. These informed the relaunch of Cyrus.
Its Managing Director, Mrs Alero Imo, said: “At Cyrus, we build to international standard. As an architect, I make sure my doors are of standard sizes, made with quality materials and the finishings are of international standard. Our doors can compete with others from any part of the world. We work for a multinational company and, in 20 years, we have been able to satisfy them. We have places where our doors are tried and trusted.’’
The journey
Twenty years ago, Mrs Imo, an architect, realised she had a passion for wood work. Then she was with James Cubitt (Architects) as a principal partner. Their clients included Mobil. While supervising the oil giant’s project, her duties included office fittings. It was from there that her interest started.
“My independent streak and flair for joinery works led to the acquisition and refurbishing of a spindle machine, an ancient refurbished planning machine and two carpenters. We grew slowly, but surely, producing and training staff who can work with any international worker in furniture and joinery.”
Achievements
With exposure to trade shows and training courses on furniture and joinery, Cyrus now has ultra-modern machines.
The company has become an employer and has trained numerous artisans. It has corporate and individual clients and has won several awards, including the Central Bank of Nigeria Award for Excellence in the best SME Employment Generation Category for 2009.
Interestingly, Cyrus products are Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) certified.
“Over 20 years, we have been able to come to a stage where we have a fully-authomated factory. We produce doors, our flagship product; we also produce wardropes and kitchens and we have a full complement of beds and soft furniture, including sofas. These 20 years mark a restructuring and re-engineering of Cyrus as we have obtained reputations in various sectors, rescuing jobs that were abandoned by other companies and producing quality and affordable products.’’
Job creation
Aware that the skilled workers are few in the industry, Mrs Imo said: “We have been able to contribute to the employment sector by training our artisans knowing that we have the responsibility of training artisans even as we perform the job of furniture and joinery. We make huge contribution to the employment quota.
“To get educated artisans work for us; we visit the Federal Training Centre in Yaba, Lagos, a catchment area for schools to employ those in the joinery faculty.’’
Challenges
“Power is a major challenge. We provide our power sources, such as transformers and generators.
“Secondly, Nigerians are cutting our trees and exporting them. In Lagos and Ogun, there are no trees. You have to go very far and they are cutting young trees, which are not mature enough, so the standard in the cutting is not the right standard.
“Also, contending with imported products have been difficult like Chinese, Turkish or European doors, which sometimes might be sub-standard.We believe that manufacturing is the way forward for our people.
“So far, the government has not been supportive and we want them to know that there is a dying industry which is capable of employing lots of young Nigerians, if they pay attention to it.”
Moving forward
The company intends to come up with new products, which will be pocket-friendly to everyone in the society, in a way that the low and high-end customer can afford to buy a Cyrus product.
Cyrus has an interior section and, two days ago, it displayed its products at the Landmark Hotel, putting doors in the fore. The company plans to organise ehibitions and provide outlets for visibility as soon as possible.
She added: “Our DIY (Do It Yourself) store is open. It is called iCyrus. Nigerians do not have the DIY culture but we have a blog which is educating people on how DIY is done. We have spent almost a year trying to create awareness. The essence of the DIY is to give people DIY solution so that by the time they understand what DIY is all about and they see the iCyrus Store, they will understand the concept.”