Liangzheng Ni might just be the most influential office furniture executive you’ve never heard of. He founded and owns Sunon, one of Asia’s largest and most respected office furniture makers. He has aspirations for his company that will have a profound effect on the office furniture industry around the world.
You see, Mr. Ni (pronounced “Knee”) as he is known around the company, set a goal of becoming one of the top 5 global office furniture manufacturers. To do that, he needs to do what no Asian office furniture maker has ever done — break into the key North American market selling products under its own brand.
After years of investing in North America, Sunon believes it has the structure in place to meet its lofty goals. It has a state-of-the-art furniture factory in Monterrey, Mexico designed to get its products to the North American market without having to wait for them to be shipped from Asia. It opened a research and design center in Berlin and the company is dedicated to designing and engineering its own unique products. And it built dealer networks in Asia and the Middle East and understands how to connect with and service its distribution partners. Its North American headquarters opened in Irvine, Calif. in 2020 and the company built a core staff from U.S.-based industry veterans.
As it completes more and more successful projects in North America, it is changing perceptions about Asian-made furniture as well. The company understands that few designers have even heard of Sunon and it needs to build its brand. Part of its strategy is to hire veteran salespeople from MillerKnoll, Humanscale and Steelcase who really know the industry and understand the expectations designers and dealers have of the brands they work with, said Paula Roberts, director of sales for Sunon in the U.S., who joined Sunon after a 22-year sales career with Steelcase.
“It is also important to bring designers and dealers to our headquarters in Irvine so that they can touch and feel the product, share samples and do all the things you need to do to convince a designer, whether at a dealer or an A&D firm, that the quality is absolutely there,” she said.
For dealers, Roberts said Sunon has a strong value proposition. “We’ve got beautiful, unique aesthetics. We have high quality products. We want to be easy and flexible to do business with, but we’ve got accessible pricing. So we have the ability to sell to the smaller dealers, the smaller clients as well as much larger dealers,” she said.
The changing post-COVID market is working to the company’s advantage, she said, since mid-market manufacturers are being specified and looked at much more often than they were pre-pandemic. Unlike many of its mid-market competitors though, Sunon has a complete portfolio of products — everything from stacking chairs to beautiful veneer private offices. It also has a complete collection of ancillary products as well. Roberts wants aligned dealers to think of Sunon as a credible second alternative. If a potential customer balks at the prices from the majors, Sunon can step in with a complete lower-cost solution.
Sunon also supports its dealers by offering design and proposal work at no cost to them, and it has a CET extension. The company also supports dealers by helping expedite installation. Sunon products include a lot of features that make installation fast and easy.
By focusing on quality, customer service and sustainability, Sunon believes it can convince designers and dealers to give them a chance. Sunon already counts some of the largest companies in the world as its customers. Sunon’s world headquarters is in Hangzhou, China, a thriving city that is home to Alibaba and a growing Chinese tech industry. Alibaba Founder Jack Ma sits at a Sunon desk and on a Sunon chair, as do almost all of its employees. Alibaba is just one of an impressive group of Sunon customers, both domestic and abroad, that also includes Amazon, Google, Tencent, Ace, Huawei, Coca-Cola, WeWork, Ford, Tata, Heineken, Pepsico and others.
Linda Yuan, who leads the company’s U.S. operations, said Sunon has worked with about 100 of the global Fortune 500 companies. Many of those companies have headquarters or operations in North America, which is leading to some specifying Sunon furniture for their projects here. Husky Oil in Canada is one of them. The company had worked with Sunon for years in Asia so when they had a project in North America, they continued the relationship.
There’s plenty of furniture to choose from. It has a broad furniture collection with original designs and it launches many collections each year. Research and development are part of its DNA, said Yuan.
“We work with studios and designers from around the world such as Italy, Germany, Denmark, and Japan,” she said, adding that they are looking for U.S. designers to work with and developing a U.S.-based research and development center.
Sunon cares about the environment as well. Its factory has solar panels on the roof. Its headquarters in China has a green roof and uses goats to keep it trimmed. It uses waterborne paint and has a new chair that is made using recycled ocean plastic.
Sunon understands the challenges that entering the largest and most competitive office furniture market in the world, but it believes that a strategy of quality, design and customer service, along with the lower cost of its products will help it succeed.
If it can convince designers and dealers these values are true, Mr. Ni’s dream of becoming a top 5 furniture maker might come true after all.
