Case Studies
Issue No. 9 - February/March 2003
CSA
How technology investment keeps cork supplier out in front
CSA was founded in 1990 with only $50,000 capitalisation, but the vital advantage of direct links with its Portuguese parent.
The present managing director, Neil Walsh, joined as sales manager in 1992, when turnover stood at $1.8 million. Neil perceived strong potential for growth and, rising to MD in 1997, he has continued to drive that growth by highlighting to Australian winemakers CSA’s unique access to the world’s cork supplies.
CSA is the country’s only fully integrated cork supplier….
But there was also a need to diversify. The Australian wine industry looked considerably different in 1992; there were many ‘middle-sized’ wine companies. As the industry reshaped itself to become today’s exporting dynamo, the client base for corks shrank. To avoid becoming vulnerable, CSA developed packaging products (capsules and alternative closures to cork) and winemaking supplies markets.
Products other than cork appeared on CSA’s books in 1994, giving Neil’s team greater opportunity for sales to the shrinking number of big clients in the industry.
Now based at a purpose-built facility at Wingfield, CSA’s has grown ten-fold on its 1992 productive capacity to a potential output of one million corks a day. The workforce has increased from three part-time employees to 20 full-time staff who have supplied more than 250 million closures to the wine industry during the past 12 months—about 22 per cent of the Australian cork market generally and 25 per cent of the sparkling wine cork market.
Neil expects turnover in 2002-03 to reach $40 million on the back of growth that has ranged between 15 and 25 per cent per year during the past decade, and despite rumours of the wine export boom tailing off, CSA customers estimate their growth will be robust next year.
“What really kicked Cork Supply along [in the early days] was the connection to the Portuguese cork suppliers,” Neil says. “I...
