AHFA's Sligh seeks to unite industry
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, January 31, 2005
High Point — As 2005 president of the American Home Furnishings Alliance, Sligh Furniture Chairman and CEO Rob Sligh will lead a trade group that late last year made one of the biggest changes in its 100-year history.
In November, the board of the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn. voted to change its name to AHFA and admit furniture importers incorporated in the United States. Membership previously was open only to domestic manufacturers.
Sligh, 51, embraces the change and hopes to bring factories and importers together under "one large tent" to address a common goal.
"The biggest challenge will be to increase the home furnishings share of U.S. consumer spending," he said. "We have talked about this for a long, long time in our industry. It has been difficult to move the needle."
The challenge of managing differing views and strategies isn't foreign to Sligh or his family. His Holland, Mich.-based company both makes and imports product. In addition, his forebears have served as association leaders and have dealt with trade issues that date to the late 1880s.
Sligh's great-grandfather, Charles Robert Sligh, founded Sligh Furniture in 1880 and was president of the National Furniture Manufacturing Assn. from 1888 to 1892. During that time, a major issue was shipping cost differentials between major cities and smaller cities, when railroads subsidized runs to big cities by charging higher rates on shipments to smaller cities.
The McKinley administration also imposed import tariffs in 1890, which concerned furniture industry officials because they were importing some goods used in production.
The NFMA was dissolved by 1920, replaced by the Chicago-based National Assn. of Furniture Manufacturers in 1928. Sligh's grandfather, Charles Robert Sligh Jr., served as NAFM president in 1945 and his father, Robert Lewis Sligh, was president in 1973.
Rob Sligh sees parallels between past developments and today's business environment. For instance, Grand Rapids, Mich., was the center of furniture production until the 1920s, when the industry started a slow but steady move to the South.
The Southern Furniture Manufacturers Assn. formed in 1911. By 1950, Sligh said, nearly half the wood bedrooms made in the United States were produced within 125 miles of High Point.
The NAFM and SFMA merged in 1984, a year before Sligh attended his first annual meeting of the new AFMA. He became president of Sligh Furniture in 1990, and was named CEO in 1993 and chairman in 1994. He began serving on AFMA's board of directors in early 1997.
The reality today, he said, is that retailers are demanding the lowest possible prices. That means sources must look to overseas production partners.
"Like most other industries, we manufacture most of our products outside the United States, and that didn't used to be true," Sligh said. "Everybody has come to terms with this in a little different way."
But he believes the U.S. furniture industry still brings value to the table with product design and engineering, sales and marketing and customer service. He also believes U.S. companies can remain competitive as manufacturers, if they eliminate processes that can't compete globally.
"Whatever you have in your value chain, including manufacturing, has to be world competitive," he said.
In dealing with these issues, Sligh believes there are lessons to be learned from the past.
"There have always been big issues to be dealt with and we shouldn't feel put upon that we are facing a dramatic change," he said. "Various groups and associations have worked through those (changes). "It gives me confidence we can get through it."
Not everyone embraces the new membership criteria, but AHFA officials are optimistic that Sligh will help bridge differences and move the association forward.
"Rob is sensitive to all the issues we are faced with as an organization," said AHFA CEO Andy Counts. "He realizes that we need to be aware, as we go through this transition, of what members feel about the changes. (His company) has adopted a model of a blended strategy, so he looks at it from both sides. That's going to be very important as we work to bring everybody under the same tent."
Sligh said the group's name change was accompanied by much discussion and consensus-building. He plans to work with member CEOs in much the same way, finding ways AHFA can better serve its current and future membership, and help build their businesses.
One possibility is a program offering group container rates, creating more affordable shipping costs and better packaging.
AHFA also hopes to encourage members to become more consumer focused and communicate with retailers on ways to make that happen. Ideas likely will emerge as it plans a joint conference with the National Home Furnishings Assn. in 2006.
"My only hope is that people will look back at our era and say, not only did the membership criteria open up, but (the association and its members) opened up to the consumer, embraced the consumer and gained more share of consumer dollars," Sligh said.
