Recently, Mr. Cai Yanguo, President of MATSU --- a high-end office furniture brand, was invited to have an interview with “CEIBS BUSINESS REVIEW”.

Emotion and environment influence people’s decision making. In the sight of Mr. Cai Yanguo, president of MATSU, culture individualizes a company, which means space planning is the “origin” of a company as well as the “outcome” and so is the furniture. A preferable space solution should go with top-down management approach, well facilitate vertical and horizontal communication and satisfy individual demands. The reason why MATSU always emphasizes inspiring office life is to build an office space that makes people happy.

 “CEIBS BUSINESS REVIEW” (CBR hereinafter): What’s your opinion on domestic high-end office furniture consumer demand? What’s the trend of the demand?

Mr. Cai: Currently, high-end market is mostly found in first-tier cities, where many foreign companies, state-owned companies and large private headquarters are located. These companies have the sense and ability to improve office environment, which might help to retain talents and effectively save management cost. Since a few years ago, we also see some big changes in second-tier cities, where the improvement of concept and spending power is leading to more demand for high-end office furniture.

Some people in the old days were fine with any working environment. Nowadays, talents put more requirements on working environment and if they are not satisfied, they’ll just quit the job. Therefore, if companies want more young creativeness and energy, they have to make changes, wherein changing their working environment is a very important part.

When we’re talking about a good environment, beside the sensorially beautiful layout, one more critical standard is if this environment is good for employees’ health. In 2017, MATSU involved many work stations providing lifting tables that enable people to either sit or stand while working such as our jobs for J&J and GSK. These products are very much welcomed by employees.

In the future, office must be the place that makes people happy. All the space and tools can be individualized and set according to different preference. For example, we’ve developed a new type of lifting table that , which better meets people’s daily routine. Our office is developing on a smart and IoT pathway. Let’s imagine that office functions can be connected to mobile app and app can help to get a work station, reserve conference room, adjust light and temperature based on different demands, regulate environment, and manage facilities and improve space utilization.

CBR: Is it necessary for domestic high-end office furniture industry to have more cultivation and training? What do you think is the difference between Chinese market and developed market such as Europe and USA?

Mr. Cai: Yes I think domestic market does need some more cultivation and training. Many Chinese second-tier and third-tier cities are developing very fast in economy and they actually can be ready for office environment improvement but the truth is management people and general employees seldom have the demand for high-end office environment. Management isn’t aware that environment cultivates employees, influence their behavior and determine working efficiency; while employees don’t have any idea about their working environment, in which they will spend 1/3 of their life. They don’t get aware that their health and mood are closely associated with working environment. A preferable space solution should go with top-down management approach, well facilitate vertical and horizontal communication and satisfy individual demands.

CBR: Why do you attach so much importance on “to create inspiring office lifestyle”? How do “inspiration” and office furniture connect? From your point of view, what’s the role of office furniture for corporate culture and people’s office life?

Mr. Cai: Working efficiency = creativeness * inspiration * passion. Our duty is to provide our clients with this kind of space and help to create a lifestyle. If we make employees stay in a dull space, we’re actually killing their creativeness.

Emotion and environment influence people’s decision making. Culture individualizes a company and space planning and furniture stand for corporate culture. Flexible open-type environment facilitates coordination and communication, special and bold space planning inspires employees to make imaginations while expressive colorful furniture mobilizes employees’ initiative, this improving their status and efficiency.

CBR: With respect to design concept and utilization, how do you combine European concept and Chinese aesthetic and utilization routine?

Mr. Cai: When I went abroad for investigation in 1990s, I found that in Europe, office furniture acted as functional furniture as well as pieces of art. However in China then, office furniture was just regarded as tools so since then we’ve been thinking we have to provide our clients with beautiful and functional high-end furniture.

In 1997, MATSU was the first one to launch “57” screen work station and we were leading the trend. In 2003, we introduced European most advanced open-type office to China and released Bench collection, which opened up a new thinking for domestic open-type office. In 2006, MATSU began to add more aesthetic elements to overall space solutions. In 2012, we again became the first one to present mobile space --- “M-office”, a symbol of “mobile working” and breaking routine and dull office planning. In 2016, in the hope of improving efficiency and happiness, we collaborated with Belgian designer Dirk Wynants to develop new work stations named after Denmark capital city “COPENHAGEN”.

CBR: Can you share with us wonderful cases about MATSU’s brand building?

Mr. Cai: In 2010, MATSU flagship store was established on Zao Jiabang Rd., Xuhui District, Shanghai and it’s been there for 7 years now. This year it was redesigned by the team led by Andreas Thomczyk, founder of anySCALE. Our flagship store has more innovation based on its original German simple design. In last March, MATSU Beijing was relocated to SOHO on Guang Hua Rd., also designed by anySCALE.

I do think we should make some changes to meet the demands of our clients, the society and our employees, which is in accordance with our hope. It might seem easy to rebuild our showroom but it is indeed very hard to make everything perfect. We have to think overall layout and how to satisfy everyone’s demand, which is not only a physical change but also a chemical change. In the old days, SHOWROOM was just a place to show products but now more than that, it’s a place for communication, meeting and talking. Moreover, it’s also a showroom for fashion world. People share, so we have more ideas, innovations and inspiration. Showroom helps people to know our brand the best so brand value can be fully experienced.

CBR: As a high-end brand, do you more value regular client retaining and loyalty or new client capturing? How do you realize individualization and customization for different groups of clients?

Mr. Cai: We care very much about retaining of regular clients --- they are our cornerstone and MATSU has been consistently improving quality and service to reciprocate them for the past 20 years. Regular clients not only contribute to 60% of our annual performance but also bring us new clients and new opportunities.

Meanwhile, we are also responsible for promoting advanced office concept to more people. We have prepared many excellent examples and rich product lines for our new clients --- we impress our new clients so much that although maybe we fail to cooperate at the very beginning due to any uncertainty, they will find us as soon as they’ve got further demand; MATSU will rely on its strongest professional capability and quality to perform its duty beyond clients’ expectation and win the first place on clients’ supplier list next time.

We’ll work out customized solutions for different clients before, during and after sale. At a very early stage, we plan a unique layout that embodies our client’s corporate culture (including furniture and supporting products and furnishing).

Next, we determine specific measures to implement project and after the delivery, we move to after-sale service. We have sound customer file keeping system and scientific rating criteria in headquarter CS center to work out specific sound service plan, including service cycle, service approach, service content and return visit.

We provide a combined CS approach of requested repair and initiative tour-inspection. Regular tour-inspection contributes to longer service life so it’s a cost-saving behavior for our clients. Meanwhile, we provide specific solutions for different clients. For instance, we’ll arrange a certain quantity of reservation of standard products in this project in local place, so that when our clients need a little more of the products, the delivery time is no longer than 7 days, which ensures clients’ efficiency.

MATSU has the greatest esteem for our regular clients and holds the aim of developing new clients. We’re a company in belief of “successful habits lead to visionary companies”. Our company relies on standardized operation procedure and personalized service concept to create better and more comprehensive service for all of our clients.

CBR: How do you understand the connection between service and products? With respect to service, what’s MATSU’s characteristic?

Mr. Cai: We always put product quality in the first place. Firstly, no matter how beautiful our paper layout is, we have to pay more attention to product quality in order to avoid any hidden trouble; secondly, no matter how many service staff we have or how good their attitude is, if it’s for solving complaints, in the end we still don’t win clients. But on the other hand, although we can provide the best product quality, we still don’t win our clients if our service is poor and if we don’t care about clients’ psychological need. We can see that service and product are complementary and both indispensable.

With respect to service, MATSU’s characteristic is “being initiative” and “exceeding”. The former means we carry out each step initiatively such as initiative discussion, initiative suggestion, initiative feedback and initiative service; “exceeding” means use our professional ability to think more for clients, to do comprehensive thinking, work out pre-arranged planning and so on. All we’re doing is to be our clients’ trouble-saving partner.

CBR: What’s MATSU’s future strategy and what’s your expectation for this company?

Mr. Cai: There’s huge potential in high-end office furniture industry so we can surely expect the day when local office furniture brand can compete with international giant. In the future, MATSU will make more innovations and upgrade with the help of designs and technologies, so as to create an overall office solution integrating health, smartness and humanity for our clients, thus delivering better-quality office and service and energizing the whole industry. MATSU has welcomed its first 20 years, and it’s our goal that in the future 5 years, we’ll continue to be more global, to be more creative, and to lead high-end office furniture industry in China.