Digby Jones - Hereford Furniture

After watching Digby Jones: The New Trouble Shooter at Hereford Furniture I took into account how important it is for businesses to focus on particular areas of the business instead of trying to have it all. For example Mike Muxworthy (the managing director) managed to make a loss of £80,000 in the previous year. According to Digby Jones this was due to having too much of a wide business structure for a medium sized business like Hereford Furniture. Hereford Furniture was in fact three businesses in one; a manufacturing company, an importing company and a retailing company. Not only that they were producing up to 15,000 pieces of furniture a year with thousands of different designs, colours, heights and widths.

The size and scale of the operations could not be handled with 40 employees and lack of expertise in all three areas. This was a main reason in which the business made losses. This emphasizes the importance of a business setting targets, referring to budgets and scaling operations.

During the programme Digby Jones and Mike Muxworthy interviewed employees to find out their opinions to see what they think was going wrong with the business and why they thought that the business was making such a loss. The results found that the communication in the business was poor as was the organisation. Most surprisingly they also mentioned that the relationship with Muxworthy was not sufficient.

This just goes to show that companies are not just product selling and money making organisations. For a successful company internal and external stakeholders and shareholders need to be on the same page. Good communication is key to a successful business as it helps to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the business and its operations. This is shown at the end of the programme as the communication improves so does the business and the businesses success.

Another factor that stood out in the documentary was that the target market for the business was high end. The products they make are high quality, and they sell at a high price. Muxworthy was stuck with the fact that he thought classic looking pieces of furniture were the ones that looked high quality. However Muxworthy was advised to make quirky and clever designs that would reach out to their audience; people will pay more for the right product.

Rebranding is always a huge step for businesses to take, but by taking risks it can pay off. It often gives businesses a new outlook, a modern twist, a new sense of life in the business and a more ‘catchy’ brand. In the Hereford Furniture case they rebranded their company to ‘Hygge’. This is very unique, catchy, and memorable Danish word that means good things with good people. By having a creative, modern and unknown word as a brand name gets a person talking; and to be a successful business this is what needs to happen.

In my opinion this documentary clearly shows the importance of uniqueness, setting targets, stakeholder communication and the importance of focus. In the case of Hereford Furniture, Digby Jones managed to successfully improve the company by giving them little guidance but the big push that they needed. Businesses should sometimes step out of their comfort zones.