STENTOR COVER FEATURE
skills and processes that would have been instantly familiar to 18th century Italian craftsmen. Clearly, Stentor’s workers have fulfilling, worthwhile jobs. In fact the DVD has become a hit in its own
right and is fascinating viewing. “Yes, we’ve actually made several thousand copies of it,” he says with obvious pride. “ Schools show it to their pupils as they say it makes the children more inclined to look after their instruments when they see how they have been made.” Naturally, the demands of owning a factory
several thousand miles away are great. “Yes, I am there, sometimes with my son and my wife, several times a year, Robert Bogin is out there once or twice a year and seven or eight others have been out there. Still, we couldn’t run it without today’s modern communications.”
REGIONAL DIFFERENCES With the benefit of his long experience of Chinese manufacturing, what does Doughty think is going to happen there in the near future? Many manufacturers report significant inflationary price rises in both materials and labour – so does he believe the economic miracle can be sustained? “People talk of China as if it is one country,
which it is, but it’s huge – bigger than the whole of Europe. To give you an example, we travelled once just 60 miles and people couldn’t understand the dialect of people nearby – so there are a lot of things we don’t really appreciate. There are still vast areas of China that aren’t in the coastal areas, which has been where all the development has been. It’s generally said there’s about
120 million Chinese now who’ve got the same standard of living as people in some of the main economies of the world, but that still leaves more than a billion who haven’t. “I have started to see some evidence that
operations are already closing down and moving into the less developed areas, with government help. That is something that will keep China competitive – but they’ve got big problems and with the world situation they do need to develop their domestic market.” The key to making Taixing work, Doughty maintains, is investment. “We’ve ploughed money back in. Every year we look at the factory and we look at the long term.
Automation has begun to be used, but the vast majority of the production is by hand
“I remember signing the initial agreement,
which was for 25 years and saying it’s not enough – we expect to be here longer than that. You have to look a long way ahead. We started with about an acre of factory and today it covers nearly five acres. Even then, you have to understand that the concept of freehold had no meaning – everything was owned by the state. You have to learn as you go along.” With the benefit of award-winning products
from its own design team and from its own factory, Stentor has been able to grow to become one of the UK’s major suppliers of musical instruments and has had similar success overseas, with major distributors in 19 countries and many other smaller distributors. It also has a huge catalogue offering 7,600 lines. It can’t be easy to manage a business that large with Stentor’s relatively small management team. “No, but 30 years ago we went to IBM to computerise the business and we’re now on our fifth generation of computers.” Doughty says. “We’re still with IBM today and we have a very sophisticated system. In fact our reps have often told us that we are ahead of many of the electronic companies in the way we operate. Our reps can go into a music shop armed with their laptops, check our stock, take an order and before they’ve left the premises we’ll have automatically emailed a confirmation to the shop, which will get delivery of the order on a next-day basis. The man who has really put the thrust on that, by the way, is Robert Bogin, who has worked very hard in this area.” Possibly one area where Stentor has lagged behind is with its website, Doughty says, but that is shortly to be remedied. His daughter, Liz Wilkes, who has worked for Stentor for ten years, is currently
remodelling the company website. So how does he see the
current state of the UK trade? “We supply over 1,000 shops in the UK and we have four reps on the road so we have a very good feel for the business overall. There’s no question that over the past two years the music business has had a tough time. I’m concerned that there are still so many
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
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There are 120 million Chinese with a standard of living like people in the west, but that still leaves a billion who haven’t. I’m seeing companies closing down and moving into less developed areas.
people who think the only way of selling is on price – which makes it harder and harder for the small music shop to make a living. And on that point we do not supply internet-only traders. Of course, lots of our customers have huge internet business as well, and we believe every shop should have its own website – indeed, it’s essential – but always with a bricks and mortar base as well.” “But, despite all the talk of problems, last month we had at least five applications for accounts from new shops and we would encourage that. Having experienced several recessions, this one has not bitten as hard as that of 1981. In the early 80s we lost 15 per cent of our customer base. That hit much harder and at the moment we’ve got quite a lot of retailers of different kinds who are doing well.” What does he feel separates those from
others who are struggling? “The answer has to be a generalised one, but
it’s their own judgement and assessment of the market that they can get and then setting out to get it. There are all sorts of models that work among our customers. I can think of four completely different models doing really well at the moment, so in the end it is the assessment of what you can do and setting out to do it.” And, finally, why does Stentor keep such a
low profile about its remarkable achievements? “Oh, well – I’ve always taken the view that
there are a lot of companies that are all ‘shout’ and no ‘do’ and we’re the opposite,” Doughty laughs. “We get on with it, we get it done and we’ve made a profit doing it, every year for the past 35 years.” STENTOR: 01737 240226
miPRO DECEMBER 2010 27
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