Tihitina Legesse is a Managing Director of Waryt Company. The company is a family business established 3 decades back. In course of time, they started the importation of furniture.
The company has begun innovation and design-related tasks for fashioned furniture.
Currently, she is the secretary of Ethiopian Manufacturing Industry Association.
In concert with other experienced professionals, she aspires to contribute a brick to the development of the manufacturing industry.
Herald: How to assess your success and accomplishment in the furniture industry?
Tihitina: Success is not solely generating income and enjoying a margin of profit. Success can also be measured by customers’ feedbacks. The expansion of the company and the leap of its brand name into a hallmark in the eyes of customers are also the parameters of success.
Herald: Is there any improvement in furniture industry?
Tihitina: We are amidst booming construction industry. We see also some sort of housing construction here and there, particularly, in the main towns of the country. Due to the booming of construction industry, this creates great opportunity to produce more furniture and to fulfill the demand of customers.
When it comes to furniture marketing, technology opens up the market’s gate to produce more furniture. The media and the video footages of films goad customers to caliber their tastes of furniture for their homes, and offices, among others.
Nowadays, many customers are armed with such knowledge. Though the Ethiopian Manufacturing Industry Association was established 7 months ago, the association is working aggressively to improve the furniture sub-sector. We have created various platforms, including exhibitions and other occasions to upgrade the service of furniture industry.
As we are sticking together as one family, we can do many things to improve the furniture industry. We have due responsibility to develop the industry’s service in the country.
Herald: What are the bottlenecks that betide the company not to emerge successful as it requires?
Tihitina: Shortage of hard currency is one of the main logjams that pose a friction on the company from being successful. This hampers us from not expanding more and going forward. We are portraying great results because we are producing well-fashioned furniture such as kitchen cabinet and sofa.
Of course, even if, earlier, we limited ourselves to few products, we have tried to come up with fascinating furniture with different designs locally. But, we have to give due attention to specialization in furniture industry. This needs quality control, designing and framing, among others. Most raw materials are imported from abroad through foreign currency. The furniture may take close to 6 months to reach here.
Therefore, the Waryat Company has achieved good results in quality control and designs. Working together should be nurtured similar to our culture of dining together. Satisfactory results are actualizing through means of unified thoughts for personal and social development.
The other challenge is that lack of skilled manpower for the deployment of furniture industry. Of course, it is possible to bring skilled manpower from abroad transferring skills. But, the main concern should be maintaining sustainability.
Remissness in the utilization of technology is the other challenge in furniture industry. Other countries are producing furniture using robot technology. But here, it is unthinkable to use technology. Lack of accessories is a roadblock not to modernize the furniture industry.
In this aspect, the government should encourage the furniture companies through incentives and low tariff on imported materials and equipment. The furniture sub-sector should not be categorized under manufacturing industry.
As we are local companies, special treatment in the provision of incentives for furniture companies should be strengthened.
The other challenge is basing standardization measurement on European standards. This trend kills creative and innovational works.
Herald: How far do the furniture companies go in designing and innovational works?
Tihitina: Mostly, most furniture companies show similarity in innovational and designing works. The Waryt Company focuses on modern designs, which easily grabs the customers’ attention. With sense machines, we have, to reshape the frame of the furniture.
Mostly, we use this machine for making kitchen cabinet. Of course, there are customers who need furniture that have Ethiopian’s touch and taste. When the company receives special orders, we become delightful to see it. In course of time, we have a plan to do modern designs to satisfy the interest of customers.
Herald: What do you think about the liability of patent rights in the furniture designs?
Tihitina: As a matter of fact, there is no enforceable and legal framework in furniture designs. In this case, though we lose the market game because of the presence of plagiarism of our designs, we take a risk and then ready ourselves to aggressively engage in creativity and designing works.
Fear of such plagiarism holds us back to headfirst engage in creative and innovative works. We have to have a backup to minimalize the risk of losing the market track.
Product development is one of the means for the minimization of risks in the market. And designers should be highly engaged in producing satisfactory results.
Therefore, creating a platform, for the designers, is one of the farsighted measures. Unless the designers get a platform to brainstorm and do designs, creativity and innovational works can suffer reversals.
Creating university and industry linkage is significance to advance the furniture industry. The Waryt Company has created linkage with universities to promote modern furniture designs. It is also working with machinery developers to bring satisfactory result in furniture industry.
The Ethiopian Herald March 29/2020
BY MEHARI BEYENE
