Homegrown and still growing
With expansion comes challenges. Samuel Fletcher, managing director at Rifco, reflects on how teaming with the right bank made getting bigger a much smoother process. Since starting out as a small family business back in 1975, bathroom fittings manufacturer Rifco has blossomed into a genuine made-in-Australia success story.
According to managing director Samuel Fletcher (left), since he, his older brother and his younger sister took control of the business in 2002, it has grown from turning over $500,000 a year to a multimillion dollar enterprise.
The company now boasts clients all over Australia, having built a reputation for offering an unmatched variety of designs and materials, much of which Fletcher and his sales team personally source on trips to Europe at least once a year. “Having started out marketing simple shaving and medicine cabinets, we’re now a player in the much bigger bathroom vanities market,” he says. This has meant average unit sales have jumped from a few hundred dollars to several thousand for top-of-the-range bathroom vanities.
Growing so quickly while also moving into new markets that demand bigger outlays and therefore higher risk, Rifco needed to partner with a financial institution able to fully grasp its business model, especially when it came to managing sales cycles and liquidity.
About five years ago, Fletcher ended his former banking arrangement and commenced what has been a fruitful relationship with Westpac. “We now turn over in a month what we used to turn over in a year and Westpac has been an important partner on our journey,” he says.
Westpac was also instrumental in helping the team buy its own factory, and day-to-day operations are also more seamless, especially with all sales managers now using Westpac Business-Choice Rewards credit cards. Having a centralised credit card facility makes it easier for the company’s sales leaders to do what they need to build and maintain relationships. And with more than 600 retailers nationwide on Rifco’s books, there’s a lot of necessary entertaining.
“The company has a clearer view of ongoing expenses, which means smoother admin and accounting, and we’ve found that staff who have the cards seem to feel more accountable, too,” says Fletcher.