In 1997, Sudhindra Rao started up his own commercial furniture business called Luxmy Furniture, commercial furniture company. Back then, manufacturing was a booming sector, a world away from the state of the industry today.
14 years after he started the business, at a time when the manufacturing was in the decline, and the digital space had taken over, his daughter Priyanka stepped in.
"I was having a chat with dad about what my future looked like, and he said, "Well, actually I need someone to help me with marketing." Manufacturing was also in decline, and so I saw it as a great challenge to come on board and became more and more involved in the management of the business."
Leaving her glamorous marketing job in the music industry, Priyanka was ready to take on the hefty task ahead by implementing new and innovative ways to engage with Luxmy’s clients.
Priyanka with Ricardo Goncalves in the Luxmy factory. Source: Supplied
Technology has always been at the forefront of Priyanka’s plans since taking over as CEO of Luxmy. In 2012, she and her father launched Evolvex, an online customisable flat-pack furniture company designed to take on furniture giants like Ikea. However, despite capturing the attention of the new generation of online shoppers, Priyanka decided it was best for Luxmy to go back to its roots.
“Internationally, we got a lot of press about it. The reality of the situation is while the [Evolvex] did well, it wasn't an easy fit with what we did in our commercial activity, but it was a great experiment in terms of moving into new markets, and we learnt a lot from that.”
The choice to go back to commercial was the right one, as Luxmy has seen growth of 15%, despite a sluggish manufacturing sector.
Priyanka’s decided to move away from online platforms – after all, she believes customers need a personal face-to-face experience with their furniture to make the best purchasing decisions. to an augmented reality app called ‘Test Fit’, whereby customers can use their smartphone to envision how a piece of furniture works with the rest of the space.
“Augmented reality uses your mobile phone's camera and superimposes a 3D product of the model into the camera. I suppose like Pokemon Go. So, what happens is, for our consumer, it means you can actually visualise that product in your intended space saving you that circumstance when you put it there and you go, "Ooh, I didn't like that" or "it didn't quite work out as I intended to." So it just revolutionises that shopping experience.”
Luxmy's augmented reality app TestFit. Source: Supplied
There are many things that set the Raos apart from their competitors, one of the main ones being their dedication to sustainability. Since 2004, Sudhindra has overseen the sustainability process, ensuring they use water-based glues and the material in the furniture meets environmental standards.
Priyanka admits this was more costly at first, however found that it was worth it in the end.
“We had to make different choices in the material we use, and we had to make choices in how much of the material we actually used, and the actual removal and recycling facilities also cost money. But as a business we have that specialty, which means we'll get onto projects that a lot of manufacturers won't because they don't comply with sustainability standards.”
It’s not just environmental sustainability that Luxmy advocates, but also cultural sustainability as well. Luxmy commissions Australian designers to design the furniture. Priyanka acknowledges the challenges Aussie designers have when faced with the well-known European designs, as well as countless fraudulent companies stealing designs and building cheaper, lesser quality furniture.
Every piece of furniture is Australian-made, Australian-designed and made from sustainable materials. Source: Supplied
Priyanka says, “In terms of European design, it takes quite a long time to get here and yes, you are supporting a European designer, but Australian designers have just as much value, and stands up as strongly in the international market and the benefit is you get to market in a much shorter time, as it's made here.”
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