Meena Bedi

LCN: Meena Bedi, this year is Superhanger's silver anniversary and though it was started by your father Ram, you have only recently joined. What is your background? Meena Bedi: For over 20 years I've worked in sales for a number of publishing companies and magazines covering both trade and consumer sectors. For the past 10 years I have specialised in the international duty-free and travel retail industry and just prior to joining Superhanger I was commercial director at Raven Fox Media, part of Euromoney Institutional Investor/Daily Mail Group. I was responsible for the sales and marketing of several industry publications as well as sponsorship of worldwide conferences and seminars. I also launched Euromoney's website for the duty-free and travel retail trade - www.travelretailworld.com.

LCN: Tell us briefly how the company started and how it has developed.

MB: About 25 years ago my family and I moved to England from Northern Ireland where we had lived since 1959. My father used to own a large department store and was also very involved with local business and public life as well as charity work. Because of "The Troubles", we left behind an established life and moved to England where he decided to start manufacturing wire coat hangers. He initially bought two machines and he soon expanded - at one time he was producing over one million hangers a week! LCN: Describe what Superhanger does today and what you hope to bring to the company? Now, 25 years on, Superhanger is well established as a leading distributor of a wide range of consumables for the drycleaning/textile care industry. We specialise in all types of hangers, packaging products and chemicals. We stock over 300 different product lines in our warehouse. I've been here three months and I'm still discovering new items! I never knew that drycleaners used so many different products. I'm hoping that my experience in sales and marketing will help to develop the company further and take it into a new phase.

LCN: What are the company's strengths? MB: We constantly strive to offer our customers a courteous, efficient and professional service. Our orders are processed and dispatched on a same-day basis and they often reach our customers the following day or . at maximum, within three days. Also, because we're not a big company with a cumbersome management structure we can implement and execute new ideas very quickly.

LCN: Has joining Superhanger been a bit of a "culture shock" for you? MB: I suppose it has. The international duty-free and travel industry, where I've come from, is all about prestige luxury brands and sophisticated marketing, where brand loyalty and image reign supreme.

My customers ranged from Chanel and Estée Lauder to Bacardi and Smirnoff and I was always on the road visiting them at their HQs in Paris, Geneva, New York or wherever. These companies really know all about positioning their brands, new product development and how to market themselves. And they have the budgets to do it too! I was lucky enough to have been involved in some major product launches and to have seen at first hand how they do things. I've worked in many different industries so I'm fairly adaptable.

  Hangers obviously require a rather different approach, but that said, much of what I did in my former jobs was about developing and managing relationships with people and companies, so although the products have changed, the fundamentals of the business haven't changed that much. There is a lot of potential for Superhanger as a brand within this industry, so I'm going to enjoy continuing and developing all the good work my father has tirelessly put in over the last 25 years.

LCN: How are you going about learning the business? Have there been any surprises? My father quite rightly insists that I must learn the nuts and bolts of the business first. So, I've been rolling my sleeves up and getting involved in all aspects of running this business - processing orders, product knowledge, purchasing, credit control and even the accounting! I find "the total picture" fascinating - previously I was responsible for just a part of a whole process but here I'm involved from the start through to the very end.

Everything happens so quickly at Superhanger - before I had monthly deadlines and some projects would take three months before I could see the fruits of my labours. But here there is a daily deadline to dispatch orders and to keep our customers satisfied. I get a real buzz out of that.

LCN: Who are your customers and what are your main products? In the main, our customers are drycleaners and laundries, although we also supply hospitals, hotels, some film production companies and even the odd rock star! Our best selling lines, apart from hangers, are packaging products, especially our luxury bridal boxes, trouser and shoulder guards and polythene garment film. We also have a steady demand for our Cole & Wilson chemicals and counter and retail products. We have just taken over as distributor for the Hegarty carpet cleaning range so it will be interesting to develop that line.

LCN: How do you deal with price - a contentious issue at times - and are your customers loyal? I am aware that this is a very price sensitive market but I hope that customers also look for good service and a fast turnaround of orders. Our prices are certainly competitive but I hope we also add value with the service we offer.

I've seen this in other industries too. Price is a key part of the marketing mix, but definitely not the only one. I've never seen a company survive just on a price platform. Someone can always sell cheaper than you, although not often for a very long, and I understand from my father that this is true of our industry where many a would-be price cutter has folded and left customers in the lurch.

So Superhanger is here for the long term. We do have a loyal customer base which we value highly, but we must obviously never get complacent - I will always be looking for new ways to improve on our levels of service.

LCN: In what directions do you hope to move Superhanger? Have you identified any interesting potential opportunities you can tell us about? Conversely, are there any particular hurdles to overcome? MB: With my background it's only natural that I would want to develop the sales and marketing sides of the business.

First of all, we are in the process of installing new software and hardware to facilitate our order processing procedure so that we can offer an even more efficient service to our customers.

Secondly, after I've further analysed market trends and buying habits, I'd like to identify and source some new product lines.

Thirdly, I'd like to promote Superhanger more and use some of the marketing and sales opportunities which new technology allows, so I'm already working on launching our own website and email service.

Finally, I'm also working on ways of reaching new customers and studying new markets for us.

LCN: What would you like to have achieved in a year's time? MB: In a year's time I would like to see a more efficient sales organisation offering an even better service to our customers. I'm also hoping that our forthcoming website will serve as a shop window to the global market and become a useful tool for our customers.

I know many of them are not online today, but I strongly believe that more and more people will begin to use the internet as a way of managing their business and communicating with consumers.

  Above all though, I'm hoping to be in a position where I can run the business as well as my father has done for the past 25 years.