| 27 Tauranga: Caleys Blinds REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Relocating to Tauranga a boost for business Caleys Blinds offers a full in-house consultation service. GAT Agencies supplies the world’s best fabrics, componentry andmotorisation to internal and external window furnishing and shade manufacturers who expect reliable supply, speed to market, leading edge innovation, competitive prices and industry benchmark warranties. 09 271 1131 www.gatagencies.co.nz Since 1992 GAT Agencies has built up the best quality range of products, knowledge, and service to support internal and external window furnishing and shade manufacturers. Proud to work with Caleys Blinds Relocating their existing business from Rotorua to Tauranga made perfect sense for Caleys Blinds director Cyril Pepper. Along with wife Lisa, who as sales manager also oversees the company’s administration, the couple have grown the business in leaps and bounds by offering clients great service, backed with years of experience. Caleys Blinds operates from its manufacturing and show room in Birch Avenue, Judea. The move to this new situation was also prompted by the purchase of an up-to-date cutting table measuring 5m x 5m, enabling the production team to produce blinds of all sizes. “We have 10 people across sales, manufacturing and installation. Having this table and the space to operate around it has really boosted business and taken us up to a new level of quality and customer service,” says Cyril. The company manufactures and/or supplies most types of window blinds, including roller, vertical, venetian, composite, cedar as well as interior shutters, but it is in the area of automated blinds that, Cyril says, the most exciting engagement in the market is occurring. “Motorised blinds are extremely popular and through the development of new technologies the price has become very competitive. A blind that would have cost $1000, 8 to 10 years ago, is now less than $500 and with wireless capability, the owner can operate them from anywhere in the world.” Spread across manufacturing and supplying in equal measure for residential and commercial clients Caleys Blinds offers a full in-house consultation service. “Our clients don’t always know just what they want in their new home or in their renovations and this is where the extensive array of designer materials we have available and our understanding of what options work best in any given situation really makes a difference.” And the clients the company has supplied blinds to are as diverse as their blind options. Blinds have been installed in Government House, a 19 storey Government building in Wellington, a super-yacht used for charters Sue Russell “Having this table and the space to operate around it has really boosted business and taken us up to a new level of quality and customer service.” in the Mediterranean, high-end apartment complexes and major corporations. “It’s interesting when you consider that in the Tauranga area there are three blind manufacturers and south of Palmerston North there are none, so we also undertake work in and around the Wellington region.” Working from Tauranga also has the benefit of tapping into the supply chain with the Ports of Tauranga close by. And the city’s location, 2 hours from Auckland and closer to Hamilton, brings considerable business the company’s way. “More than half the population and probably more than half the business in New Zealand is generated north of Taupo, so we’re in the perfect place to engage.” With the boom in construction, both commercial and residential, business is doing very well and with the lack of ability to spend money off-shore on overseas holidays, Cyril says more and more people are investing in upgrading their homes, switching to automated blinds as the opportunity presents. Asked just how busy the company is, Cyril says they are currently tendering for business out to 2024. “That’s really encouraging as it gives security to our valued team as well, in that they will have plenty of work going forward.” Every now and then even Caleys find themselves supplying blinds in the most unexpected of situations. Case in point, Auckland Zoo, where staff noticed a lack of engagement with the public on the part of the Orangutans, who were more interested in watching their food being prepared in an adjoining space. Solution was to commission Caleys Blinds to install blinds that prevented the clever primates from watching their keepers. “That was certainly an interesting project for us to be involved with. The solution worked perfectly.”
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