By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Sweden-based Configura launched its Grand Rapids office in 2005 with just three people. Now the office employs 19 and recently doubled its office space at 100 Grandville Avenue SE. Five of the employees relocated their families here from Sweden, contributing to the city's ethnic and cultural diversity.
Configura creates software, CET Designer, for office furniture manufacturers that allows them to produce an estimate for a customer quickly and precisely — right down to the smallest component. That efficiency, in turn, allows the customer to estimate small orders they otherwise wouldn’t be able to quote simply because the man-hours would be too costly.
“Selling office furniture is very complicated,” says Peter Brandinger, vice president. “Panel systems have a lot of different parts to them; it’s very difficult even for someone who’s trained to get an accurate quote. It takes several hours to build one configuration, and a four-pack could take up to eight hours. Our software knows every component needed and can create the estimate in minutes.”
Brandinger expects slight growth in 2009 due to the uncertain U.S. economy, but he doesn’t expect to lose business.
“The nature of what we do is such a long-term strategic investment and our end users are interested in using the technology during the slower times,” he says. “There’s so much positive energy here I’m just convinced this part of Michigan is going to continue to be a good place to do business in the future.”
CET Designer won Best of NeoCon Gold last June at NeoCon in Chicago.
Source: Peter Brandinger, Configura; Molly Klimas, Intent Public Relations
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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