Moenia Design

Warren Buffet Rocks!

moenia — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:00:22 +0000

One of the great things I look forward to every year is reading Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual Report. Warren provides great insights in how to own and manage a business. He also admits his mistakes. His average annual return is about 21% which is phenomenal considering most of the market averages 10% or less. If you include trading costs, the returns are around 8%. My accountant who does a lot of people’s taxes and many of them are in the financial industry as traders, most have lost money despite what you hear on the television at CNBC or Bloomberg. This report is 78 pages but it is the pages 4-20 is what is worth reading.

As an “investor” not a trader, these pages offer the most valuable insight.

I am grateful to watch him so I can learn how he invests. It is really helpful to my business. My dream is to have a similar business model as Berkshire but on a smaller scale than BRK.A

Practical “Geen” Guide

moenia — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:21:01 +0000

We provide accessories and accent furniture to the trade and here is some simple things that we encourage our customers, suppliers, and sales reps to do to be green

To our Customers: We love them. They are great! We would suggest to all customers doing business with us or any vendor to follow some simple guidelines

Please send purchase orders via email
Please request invoices via email
Work with us to use recyclable and re-usable pallets and packaging boxes
Use the web to see our catalog instead of requesting a printed or CD. If something is missing, please let us know what information you would like to see on the web to help you make a more informed decision. Examples: a larger picture, more details about the specifications of the product. We charge for a printed catalog not because we want to make a profit but because it is a waste of resources and it will never stay current as the data on the web.
- We intend to make our site fully ecommerce enabled so orders can be placed on-line and status of all orders can be checked on-line. Most ecommerce packages are for B2C. There are no good, easy to use, and reasonable software solutions out there for B2B. This is for another topic which I will cover in detail. The existing B2C packages have to be adopted and this is an expensive proposition. You can always create a site but it does not integrate with a back-end ERP and CRM system. The cost is still too prohibitive. There is one recent new solution that is now out in the marketplace. It is relatively new and time will tell.

To our Suppliers: It is key for us to have great suppliers where we can support each others efforts to be environmentally conscious and provide products that are green and free of toxins.

Provide a complete list of materials and chemicals that you use on the products. This is the hardest thing to get. The industry needs a way to help our suppliers so there is a verifiable way to ensure environmentally safe products.
- A side note – We need better on-line sources to find manufacturers. Alibaba focuses on China primarily and the information is not enough to make judgements about the what the products are, how it is made, what materials are used to make it, what finishes are used, what are the working conditions, or what the full capabilities of the suppliers are. If I had the funds, I would start an alternative to Alibaba that will be a whole lot better than what they offer.

To our Sales Representatives: Sales representatives can follow the same guidelines as our customers and help customers migrate from a paper based ordering system to a electronic ordering system. We give a higher priority to email or on-line orders rather than faxes or phone orders. This helps us be responsive to our customers.

Green (con)fusion in the furnishings industry

moenia — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:53:34 +0000

There are now many efforts to bring the furnishings industry into the modern age. Being green, sustainable, environmentally conscious is something our company strives for. These efforts are to be applauded. At least, the attempts are being made to move towards products that are more sustainable. For manufacturers and distributors that are smaller there needs be clarity on which organizations seal is appropriate. There are too many organization so it is hard to know which one is appropriate for smaller companies and which ones are just marketing scams. The Sustainable Furniture Council can cost up to several thousand dollars depending on the size of your company. Ours is relatively small but still high price for us. If they helped us with our international suppliers to get them to be sustainable and green, then it will be worth it. The Design Green Alliance does not charge anything to join. We make every effort with our products to be natural, sustainable, and green. The alphabet soup of what looks like marketing organizations that promote sustainability is confusing and also have no real and practical guidelines. Bigger companies can certainly pay whatever fees are required. Programs for smaller business are needed. Let us know what other organizations are out there for the accessories and accent furniture industry. We did join one that is free and Tim is genuinely for promoting companies that are making efforts to be green and sustainable.

The hardest part is trying to convince our international suppliers to be green. Most of our products come from Indonesia and Philippines. We don’t manufacture anything in China, at least not yet. There isn’t a good supplier network that enables us to find verifiable green accessories and accent furniture. Feel free to let us know of any sources.