Rubric “UAFM in faces”: Interview with Sergey Reshetnik, head of “Fancy Marble”

… And made the company a real furniture company.

For the second decade, the capital company “Fancy Marble” has been delighting buyers of its products with excellent bathroom products, offering furniture and plumbing of the highest quality, which will find its place in any room and style. And although the name of the company in any translation sounds a bit playful (“cool marble”), it is actually a serious, authoritative and responsible player in the domestic furniture market. Serhiy Reshetnyk, its head, told us more about this and about himself.

It is common for domestic furniture makers that furniture companies are usually headed not by furniture makers by profession, but by people of various professions who have organizational and managerial qualities, a business vein, so to speak. And what are the secrets of practical furniture mastering as their company develops? Sergei is no exception. He came to a company that sold imported plumbing, a seller with a master’s degree in public administration. He got used to it quickly and within six months developed such a strategy for its reform and development that the founders immediately offered him the director’s chair: they say, you offered, and you implement.

And he realized, already having enough practical experience for this: in the Crimea, where he came from, he had his own business, which, although not furniture, but had to work with wood. He also learned to work skillfully with clients. His significant innovations at Fancy Marble were aimed at making the company truly a furniture manufacturer. I didn’t have to start from scratch. The company practised the production of certain bathroom furniture, but this direction in its activities was secondary, incidental. The new director rectified this situation by making furniture production a priority. At the same time, he decided that bathroom furniture made in Ukraine should be equipped with “made in Ukraine” washbasins. And they appeared – from the cast stone of the same brand name, which became a rebranding of the former brand “Bull-Bull”. The fact that the production of furniture has been established solidly is evidenced by the fact that both serial production and individual orders under the brand “Fancy Marble” are practised. Of course, with the increase in furniture production, the number of employees increased, now about a hundred of them.

– So you have mastered the production of washbasins?

– No, it is the business of our contractors who pour artificial stone washbasins for us according to our size, unique design and under our brand. As well as kitchen sinks, baths. Thus, imports – mostly Finnish – were abandoned altogether, focusing on exports instead.

– And where are you headed?

– The main countries that buy our products are Finland and Germany. For German customers, we make furniture according to their documentation – just as contractors make cast stone washbasins for us. We export within five percent of what is produced and consider it an achievement because it was not there before. It is gratifying that there is an export trend, even in a pandemic.

– One of your competitive positions can be considered the readiness of post-warranty customer service. Bathroom furniture, given the conditions in which they are operated, perhaps more often need such maintenance?

” I wouldn’t say.” About once every five years we are approached for such a service. We give a two-year warranty on our products, so five years after the warranty period, someone may need repair and restoration intervention. The reason for damage to the furniture in the bathroom is often poor quality or used plumbing – faucets, siphons – which does not hold water well, which, getting to the bottom of the cabinets, damages the slab material. Other common needs include replacing the mirror due to corrosion with amalgam, repairing or replacing lighting fixtures.

To what Serhiy said, we can add that in the history and activity of each company there will always be something unique, which is not present in others, even similar ones, which gives it individuality. Fancy Marble points out, for example, that no other company in Ukraine will be able to offer the range of washbasins it has. And another very interesting detail: the company now exports products to Finland, from which it imported plumbing for a long time when it was its seller.

At the end of July, Fancy Marble became a member of the Ukrainian Association of Furniture Manufacturers. According to its head, the company’s greatest expectations in this regard are corporate participation in exhibitions, trade missions, Bayer meetings and the opportunity to expand the range of suppliers from among the companies that are members of the Association.