Our export team continues to expand and is achieving increasing success in our overseas network - primarily through Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Middle East, India and Brazil, South Africa and Northern Europe report Phil Robbins

Australia / Orangebox launch in Sydney
Orangebox has now being manufactured under license in Australia for over 20 months and the
response to JOY has proved beyond our expectations. Ian Harrison our local agent in Sydney has dazzled the local design community and Blue chip clients alike with his new USP
“Progressive recline force”!.........it’s an Aussie ergonomic thing!!

JOY has now won some significant contracts including The Australian Department of
Employment, Education and Workplace Relations, ACT, Rio Tinto and the South Australian
Department of Energy, all made locally. Having successfully introduced JOY we are now rolling
out the Work in the Comfort Zone portfolio, again manufactured in Aus.

Partnering with the British Embassy and UKDTI in Sydney we launched Orangebox at the
Consulate General which proved perfect to show the strength and depth of our portfolio.

The glitterati of Sydney’s designers and clients alike could not resist a personal invite from the British Embassy and the evening opened with the British Consulate General saying a few kind
and insightful words of introduction against a backdrop of Circular Quay, Sydney Harbor Bridge
and the Opera House.

I opened my presentation by showing Welsh surfers on the Severn bore! A tenuous cultural link but this set the tone. We also took this opportunity to show ARA. Aussies don’t mince their words and as expected, the response was ‘bonzer’. So ‘bonzer’ in fact that, since my return we have landed
our first major order in Brisbane for 750 chairs for a major telecoms headquarters.

As with the UK - environmental concerns are high on the agenda and the Cradle to Cradle protocol is beginning to make waves in Australia. Orangebox have once again stolen the march on our competitors with a chair which answers real environmental ergonomic, economic concerns while
ticking all the aesthetic boxes.

The presentation seamlessly progressed into an evening of colorful conversation refreshed with “tinnies and tucker”

Hong Kong and Singapore

BW Ltd have been our exclusive distributors here for two years and are bucking the global economic trend by closing in on their annual target and already passing their order intake from 09.

Significant wins at HSBC with JOY mesh and Airea pods in their Asia region and major Comfort Zone projects with HSBC, CIMB and UOB banks continue to prove the global relevance of the Orangebox 3rd Space proposition.

Hong Kong / Late May was launch night for ARA

I joined Simon Castle and the BW team for this event which was held in BWs new Hong Kong showroom and although this was an informal drinks evening our plans of a soft launch of Ara were
soon turned on their head.

With the Key messages from our “No Green Bull” looping away behind us our double act of Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee (yep me being Debbie with the C2C props) soon evolved to presenting the chair to small groups of designers - continuously over a four hour period. The evening was a massive success with everybody commenting on the quality of the environmental design, the look and the comfort. Even the Herman Miller secret agent who we sussed straight away was lost for words and left looking suitably worried.

Project report / TAP Airlines Club Lounge Lisbon.

For a world renowned Architect like Miguel Arruda to specify our products in this striking scheme was a coup indeed. Space was at a premium for this state of the art interior where cutting edge
technology and media requirements were seamlessly integrated.

Tarn, Dean and Point provided the Architect with a unified design language which specified in
contemporary bold colors against a primarily white backdrop; increase the visual impact, achieving
a cool contemporary and successful business lounge.