Skope Celebrates Decade of Partnering With Haier

In an age where business relationships, and often businesses themselves, seem to come and go, SKOPE Industries (SKOPE) is proud to be celebrating its ten-year partnership with Chinese manufacturer Haier. Today, the SKOPE brand is recognised as one of the greatest commercial refrigeration brands worldwide. Haier, the world’s largest white goods manufacturer, and SKOPE, recently celebrated the ten-year anniversary of their relationship with an event in Qingdao, China, attended by SKOPE founder Sir Robert Stewart and his son, SKOPE Managing Director Guy Stewart and Alexandra Stewart, the company’s Creative Director. Early in the 21st Century, SKOPE recognised that in order to survive and grow, the Christchurch-based company with an international reputation for producing high quality commercial refrigeration would need to travel the world and sell its products where it could. It was decided that the solution was to find a manufacturing partner that had the ability to leverage economies of scale, but that also understand the importance of quality as a key point of difference in an increasingly competitive market. Haier was the perfect partner. Sir Robert, who has now retired but sits on the board of the Stewart’s family-owned company, says he is a passionate believer in the importance of a brand and the 80:20 rule, which says you can get 80 per cent of the market with the best quality and best priced products, and 20 per cent requires a different luxury brand to meet the demands of customers who want to be perceived to own something that is better. The relationship with Haier enables SKOPE to strive for that 80 per cent market share. "I believe that Haier has the potential to dominate all levels of electrical appliances, particularly refrigeration, both domestic and commercial," says Sir Robert Stewart. For the 20 per cent markets, such as Coca Cola and 7-Eleven, Sir Robert says SKOPE knows how to design commercial refrigeration that fulfils these global requirements. In response to other corporate and customer demands, in September SKOPE will launch its revolutionary new ActiveCore™ technology that is being manufactured by Haier, but has been designed in Christchurch at SKOPE’s innovation and design centre. It is the ultimate innovation, and a major leap forward for our industry, says Sir Robert. Each and every component of the ActiveCore™ unit has been developed with energy efficiency in mind. The ActiveCore™ technology will reduce energy costs for the customer; provide users with a quicker rate of return with over 50 per cent savings when compared to SKOPE’s current biggest selling two-door chiller. This equates to savings of nearly $600 per annum, a huge feat in engineering for SKOPE. Guy Stewart, who took over the role of managing director from his father, Sir Robert Stewart, in 2002, says the future competitive landscape in commercial refrigeration is going to evolve to be a mixture of energy efficiency, product features, greater serviceability, minimal noise, with maximum customer engagement and price. "This equates to a value proposition, and we are well positioned to create solutions for this together with Haier using our combined talents. This will be key for global corporate customers, who want to invest value solutions for themselves," says Mr Stewart. Original story from scoop.co.nz