Hong Kong proves a winner for Orca

HONG KONG NEW ZEALAND
BUSINESS ASSOCIATION INC.

Hong Kong proves a winner for Orca

Triathlon and high performance sportswear manufacturer Orca has won an award for the way it uses Hong Kong to take its products to the world.

Called Sonar Group in Hong Kong, the company took the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong New Zealand Business Award for the best use of Hong Kong for its business at the NZ China Trade Association’s biennial awards held in Auckland tonight.

Christchurch’s Soeur Design and Auckland’s DQ Company were also finalists.

Sonar Group told the judges it uses Hong Kong for product development, production management and logistics. Production is done mainly in China with other factories in Taiwan and more recently New Zealand.

However, Orca retains all design and owns its intellectual property in New Zealand. Global marketing is also handled from New Zealand, in association with a London office which services Europe.

Orca’s founder Scott Unsworth says a team of three people spent two months in Hong Kong in 2003 to research the best way to set up a company there and to establish a production network in China. It was decided a separate legal entity from the New Zealand registered company was best for Orca long term and that was established in 2005. Since then the HK office has grown to employ 10 locals and three expatriates who work with Chinese manufacturers and HK logistics companies to service the world.

Challenges like minimum order quantities and quality control have all been overcome as relationships have firmed and networks have expanded, Orca says. Now HK companies have expressed an interest in working with Sonar to take the Orca brand into wider China too.

The judges said of the many entries Sonar showed the most mature use of Hong Kong’s strategic location and logistical systems to do business. Orca took time to get its set up right as Sonar Group and has now established a solid network to make best use of both Hong Kong and China as a production and logistical hub for supplying its iconic sportswear to the world.

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