Teknion: Teknion considering exporting from India to APAC & Europe soon

Canada-based workplace interior firm Teknion might consider exporting from India to APAC and Europe in near future as it plans to open its first manufacturing facility for office furniture in the country in 2024, Patrick Forget, managing director, APAC & EMEA, told ET.

The company has a large facility in Malaysia that supports the APAC region and now plans to start manufacturing in India.

“The goal is to support the India market but if there are opportunities to export then we are going to take advantage of that, but the primary reason is to support the local market,” Forget said.
Teknion has seen office design changing after Covid and there is demand for more collaborative space within the office. Setting a manufacturing hub in India was not in company’s plans but due to the increased demand, it has decided to go ahead with it.

“We have a large facility in Malaysia that supports the APAC region. And there’s a favourable trade agreement between Malaysia and India and that’s worked for us for a very long time. The market in India has developed. To begin with not everything will be made here, but certain key products that are focused on this market will be where we start,” said Forget.

Teknion would be making investments in both the sales and operations side of the business. Teknion has reported growth after pandemic.

“Demand had gone down for new projects but there were many projects in the pipeline that needed to be fulfilled. There was almost like a backlog of projects which lead to pent up demand,” the executive said.
The Indian market is the third largest market in the world after US and Canada.

“We absolutely see unbelievable growth in the Indian market. We always had more strategy in India versus China in the past 20 years, and I think there were times we may have questioned that. But we are not questioning that today,” Patrick said.
The slow return to work after the pandemic has not impacted company’s business.

“No client is the same today, everybody has a different approach. Some people are saying we are never going back to work and other companies said we got to get everybody back to work. And then, there’s a bunch of people that are in the middle,” said Forget.

“Companies are trying to get people to come back to work and the challenge for the CEO of today is how do we get people to start coming back to the office. We are seeing our customers looking to get information on how do we get people back and it becomes a discussion about having an environment that people want to come to work,” Patrick said.

The executive said that someone looking for a job can work from home, but if someone looking for a career, they should come to the office.

The talk of global slowdown of economy has not had any impact on the company yet.

“Having said that, we have to watch these things carefully. But that seems to be focused on a few banks in a few locations, and that doesn’t seem to be trickling to APAC and India,” the executive said.
Company has seen growth in social and collaborative pieces such as the loose furniture, ancillary furniture, coffee tables, as offices are focused on creating more space for employees.