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Before joining his father’s business selling Philippine-made furniture in Chicago, Jof Babaran, an industrial engineer, worked with one of the biggest companies in the United States. In 1990 he gave up his career as an industrial engineer and worked for six years as a buyer for his father’s business.

In 1992, during one of his buying trips to the Philippines, Babaran met and married Frances De Vega, after which the couple decided to put up a company that would manufacture his father’s furniture needs in the US. He held office in his and his wife’s bedroom at the house of his in-laws in Quezon City, then converted the 50-square-meter structure of their defunct piggery into a rattan furniture factory.

The company, which he called Arte Caña, started with only four workers: one to make the furniture frame, one to weld the frame, one to weave the wickerwork, and one to put the finishing touches. Babaran himself was the salesman, the deliveryman, the secretary, and everything else besides.

 

A BRILLIANT IDEA TURNS INTO A BUSINESS

It was during this time that Babaran developed an innovation for rocking chair glider rockers. Glider rockers in the US and Canada are normally made of wood. He says: “We developed a glider rocker made of rattan and steel, and the innovation made it more stable.”

Fascinated with the mechanism, Babaran came up with the idea of mass manufacturing it. In 1992, he started producing the glider rockers instead of the furniture products that his father needed.

But producing the glider rockers at home wasn’t easy. Babaran recalls: “At that time, 1997, we had to do the work at our backyard to save on rent. Our workspace was very cramped. We were working literally under the trees, putting up tents over our work areas because we couldn’t afford to construct a bigger factory. And to sustain our operations, my wife and I worked for the company without paying salaries to ourselves. For the first three years, in fact, we plowed back every little bit of profit to the company.”

In 1997, however, Babaran’s fledgling business got its first big break when it participated in the Philippine International Furniture Show. He recalls: ”All we exhibited were our glider rockers. There were almost 200 exhibitors but we were the only ones that carried the product, and our entire inventory was bought by a company that also manufactured nothing but glider rockers and marketed them in the US. Since no one else was carrying the product, that company had no choice but to pay exactly the price that we asked for.”

A NEW CONCEPT

The following year, however, the American company they were supplying with the glider rockers was taken over by another company and no longer ordered the product. This left the Babarans no choice but to market their glider rockers locally—an arrangement that proved unsatisfactory to them because they got used to getting orders from the US. “For this reason, we decided to venture into a new look and new designs for our furniture,” Babaran recalls. “It was then that we came up with The Julianne Collection brand to differentiate our new look from the old one.”

The Julianne Collection featured unique and modern designs that made use of such indigenous products as abaca, bamboo, and leather. They became instant hits. “Because our new line did very well, we were able to expand our factory, putting up new roofing over it and adding more floor space,” Babaran says.

The Babarans then put up a showroom for their products at the SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City. In 2003, however, the mall management converted the area around their showroom into an exclusive zone for computer and cellular phone outlets, so the couple transferred their Julianne Collection showroom to Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City.

“We’ve managed to grow our company every year since going into the business,” Babaran says. Indeed, their 50-sq m workspace has expanded to 1,200 sq m. To cope with the much bigger demand for its products, the company now has 40 skilled workers and also employs a designer, a draftsman, an industrial engineer, and a production manager.

Babaran says about 40 percent of the company’s revenues comes from exports to Puerto Rico, the US, Spain, Dubai, and Lebanon. Babaran has set his sights on the local market—which he says has strong potential—by offering design-oriented services to condominiums and other local infrastructure developments.

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