Glen Dimplex отметила 20-летие на рынке Австралии и Новой Зеландии

Glen Dimplex has hosted an intimate event in Sydney to celebrate 20 years in the Australian market, reflect on the journey to date and thank its valued customers and partners, with attendance from key retail partners including Harvey Norman, Narta members including Bing Lee, BSR and Retravision, along with a host of valued independent customers. Glen Dimplex Australia CEO, David Woodward described the event as an intimate fireside chat with customers friends and colleagues. “We are a very private company and we don’t celebrate very often, but 20 years is worthy of a moment,” he said. Woodward reflected on the recent loss of company founder Martin Naughton who recently passed away. “Some of you were lucky enough to meet Martin – he was an amazing man and I feel very lucky to have worked with him for 20 years,” Woodward said. “He’s left a massive mark on our business around the world and I’m very happy to say it will continue with the next generation running the company and the family is still very much behind the business. “He had an amazing life, and I’m very grateful for everything he did for me, and for our business in general. So, rather than tell a few stories about Martin, I’ll share what he calls his 10 Founder’s Principles of Glen Dimplex and I find these pretty amazing. “Rule number one – in business the only golden rule is there is no golden rule. Rule number two – always play fair. Rule number three – we have two pockets, a business pocket and a personal pocket – don’t mix them up. Number four – at the end of negotiations, it’s always good to leave a little on the table. Number five – turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. Number six – if you don’t innovate, you’ll evaporate. Number seven – grow within your resources. Number eight – the most important word in management is care. Care for your business, care for your employees, care for your suppliers and care for your customers. Number 9 – a company belongs to a lot more people than the owners. And number 10 – a person who can’t delegate is a nuisance. “I think those sum up Martin really well, and the way that Glen Dimplex has grown as a business around the world. “The group turned 50 a few years ago and we are 20 years here. “February 2006, we started in this country. I was actually employee number one. And by the end of year one we had three, and now we have 200, so things have changed a fair bit along that journey. “Glen Dimplex is a weird name. It’s not on a product, it’s not a brand name, and it comes from a combination of Glen Electric, which was Martin’s original company, and buying Dimplex, which was a much bigger competitor in the UK, and he’s got a great story about that. His mother bought an oil column heater from Dimplex and he wasn’t very happy about and she told him that she wanted a ‘good one’. “So he set about trying to change things, and he bought Dimplex, which was about eight times the size of his company at the time. So, hence, the Glen Dimplex name. You’ll never see it on a product that’s our corporate umbrella, and there’s lots of stuff under our umbrella, some of which is in the room tonight. We started out with Dimplex we added other brands as we went along. In 2016, we acquired some businesses locally, Real Flame, gas fireplaces made in Melbourne, which we still do today. We also bought Technika, which gave us some commercial exposure and another cooking brand into the market. “In 2018, we added a heating company in Adelaide, Nectre woodfire heaters, and we still make them there today. And we also acquired Home Appliances Limited from Macphersons which gave us the Euromaid brand as well. The last one was in 2021 which was Thermofilm gave us outdoor products – Crossray and Heatstrip in particular. So that was five acquisitions in five years, so we were busy, and we had a lot going on. And then COVID hit and the world went completely bonkers. “And here we are. 20 years on. So we now have over 200 staff across Australia and New Zealand. We’ve sold well over nine million products across Australasia through over 1,000 retail stores as well as 1,300 developers and builders. “One of Martin’s other favourite sayings is that people do business with people. Factories don’t do business with factories. I think that’s really important. Business gets tough, but we are all people that can talk and there is always a way. “I really wanted to thank everybody that’s tuned up today. We wanted to keep it as quite an intimate moment. It’s not meant to be a big deal. We’re not trying to be showy. I would like to say a big thank you to the Glen Dimpex team. Thank you to all of our customers – we wouldn’t be here without you and we wouldn’t be in business without you. “To wrap up, another Irish saying that I really enjoy is there are no strangers in the room, just friends that you haven’t met yet. So please enjoy the afternoon, and cheers to 20 years.”