Case Studies
Issue No. 20 - December/January 2005
Burns for Blinds
Burning Desire
Burns for Blinds has been doing business in South Australia in the window furnishing industry since 1953. In the late 1990s the company enjoyed near-pervasive brand recognition in the Adelaide market, but was moribund.
Enter Peter Marshman, in 1998. A successful management consultant who had previously been involved in the home improvement business, Peter was looking for a business that could help fund Youth Opportunities Association, a charity he had started.
"Burns for Blinds offered an obvious opportunity to capitalize on the brand name. There was an obvious mismatch between brand awareness and the company’s business volume," Peter says.
Within months of purchasing the business Peter set about the process of expansion through diversification.
"The diversified business offered the opportunity to increase the amount of money spent on advertising so that we could take greater advantage of the name," he says.
Initially the diversification involved roofing products and then carports because Peter knew these products from previous businesses he had owned.
The strategy worked. Over the past six years the turnover of the business has grown tenfold. Currently Burns for Blinds employs 80 staff and contractors and operates from a showroom at 797 Port Road, Woodville and a factory at Royal Park which manufactures roller shutters for Burns and other retailers throughout Australia.
"We now have a substantial share of the SA market in blinds, roller shutters and carports and now that our systems are more sophisticated and established we are renewing our effort to get into the Sydney market through our subsidiary company Bavaria Shutters and Blinds," Peter says.
"We’ve owned the Sydney company for five years but we have done little with it."
Peter admits that attempting to manage a growing SA business and pull the Sydney operation out of the red at the same time was a mistake.
"Previously it was owned...
