NICHEFINDER styles itself after its name. To a certain degree.
It holds exclusive rights for certain niche products, like fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), telecommunication accessories and hardware products.
While it's exclusive in its distribution rights, it turns its back on its name when it comes to its distribution network, for it is anything but niche and narrow.
Its import-export web spans Russia, West Africa, India, Europe, Korea and China. Its growth has been meteoric.
At the end of FY 2004, the company drew only US$7.44 million, a 3 per cent sliver of its 2007 sales. The extensive network has resulted in a turnover of US$205.49 million at end-2007.
The heavyweight performance is due to its directors' foresight in identifying fast-growth products.
Executive director Andrew Collinge attributes the stellar growth to jumping on the right bandwagon at the right time.
'We were lucky that the world industry of the products we decided to deal with - I'm talking about mobile phones - were growing tremendously, and we've been able to ride on that growth.'
They started small, and bought from Nokia distributors in Singapore and Dubai to ship abroad to Russia, Ukraine and India.
Then, Nichefinder found its, well, niche.
It got round the volume issue, and pinned down exclusive rights to some countries.
It started off with the sole distributorship of Philips mobile phones to India, and then a Chinese brand, Bird, to India.
But its most phenomenal distributorship deal has been Fly, a mobile phone brand 'in its own right' that ranks fourth in Russia.
It hit paydirt in 2006, a year after it secured the Fly buyer rights. Profits in 2005 was about US$119,000. By the end of 2006, it had rocketed to US$504,193.
Still, Nichefinder saw its share of hard times. Initially, when it first started in 2004, its main business was exporting commodities like cashew nuts and gum arabic from Africa to India and also within Africa.
'But it became difficult to fight against the 'big boys',' said Mr Collinge wryly.
'These people could buy big shipments, shipments of 20,000 to 40,000 lbs of cashews, while we could only pull in 2,000 to 3,000 lbs worth. The worldwide commodities market became a power player market, and we couldn't compete.'
It focuses on three main categories of goods: telecommunication products and accessories, food-related FMCG goods like chocolates and biscuits, and 'hard' products like tyres and power tools.
And it has obviously been able to thrive because of its strong contacts in Russia, Nigeria, India and Ukraine.
The strong contact base could only come from the directors' keen savvy and industry know-how from their many years of experience in the region.
Its founding director, C S Gopalakrishna from India, has deep knowledge of the African commodity market, having worked with sales and distribution companies for many years before starting Nichefinder.
Its main office is located in Singapore, partly because Mr Gopalakrishna worked in Singapore for another company before founding Nichefinder.
But despite a physical presence in Singapore and its reputable presence as a distribution giant worldwide, it only has a staff of 15 people across its three other representative offices in the United Kingdom, Russia and India.
'We don't need to have a lot of staff. We ship everything so we use agents. There's no need for so much manpower,' said Mr Collinge.
But with growth an omnipresent concern for companies of all shapes and sizes, Nichefinder is seeking out new markets 'in South America and parts of Asia' to power its growth further.
With one leverage of course: 'Main distributorship,' emphasises Mr Collinge.
This article was first published in The Business Times on 23 July 2008.
