Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but the Holer brothers have grown pretty attached to them too.
Holer Diamond Tools has been supplying high end specialist products for concrete cutting and grinding, tiling and bricklaying since 1992. What's remarkable is that since operations began out of the family garage, the business has doubled its turnover every year since, resulting in the firm becoming the largest diamond tool supplier in New Zealand by 2000.
From garage to gargantuan in just 8 years is impressive but
the secret to their success, they believe, is to provide only high end quality tools that will last long after the rest. The ‘diamond' in their name isn't just sexy branding either; it's the synthetic diamonds embedded in their tools that contribute so much to the success of the finished product. Some people might say it is a terrible waste of a perfectly good jewel, but many of New Zealand's leading construction companies wouldn't be without it.
The business was started by Fred and son Phil, then later younger brother Simon joined the team. The family emigrated here from Austria and it was Fred's experience as a concrete cutter that got them into selling then later, manufacturing their products. Now, the business has 25 staff operating out of Auckland, Christchurch, Rotorua and Wellington, and their head office and manufacturing site in Richmond.
The brothers are steering the business now, though Fred is still very much involved. Together they have their sights set on the export market. Currently 20% of their revenue, they would like to see their export share increased to 40% in the next few years. Holers currently export to Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, USA, Europe and the South Pacific, and see the global focus as a natural progression.
"We have gone about as far as we ever thought we would or could [domestically] so now exporting is where we've got to go. As far as we're concerned, we've got 6 billion potential customers". Says Phil.
To achieve their goal, the brothers have invested heavily in IT. They sell their 5,000 products online at www.holer.co.nz and in 2008, went live with their own SAP software integration programme.
But the thing the Holers are probably most excited about is a product called SuperfloorTM, a Swedish grinding machine that polishes concrete to such a high finish, it removes the surface paste.
"It's a concrete surface with no treatment, no coating, nothing at all. So the advantage of it is, it's extremely high gloss, it's durable, it makes the concrete last longer and you've got zero replacement costs" says Phil. (wwww.superfloor.co.nz )
The Holers partnered up with John Rollston at WHK three years ago when they realised the speed of the company's growth was going to need an accounting firm that could keep up.
"Our company was growing really fast and our internal systems were the same as they were 10 years ago so we knew we had to spend more money on information. We supply quality and high performance so we needed an accounting firm that had the same focus as us. We liked WHK for being an international company so they can draw on resources from all the special branches rather than referring us to another specialist somewhere else in town."
"For a company our size now, it's really important for us that every day we need to know where we are. We can't wait 12 months, get the books from the accountant and then find out we didn't have a good year."
Considering Holers' almost meteoric rise within the industry, it's hard to imagine that ever happening.
