Coral Homes Scoop Top Industry Award from Australia's Best Magazine, published by Bean Media Group

Coral Homes, one of Australia's leading home builders, have received a top accolade from Bean Media Group, publishers of the highly-regarded series of magazines entitled Australias Best. The award is for purchasing and supply chain excellence for an exclusive editorial feature that went to press in Australia's Best Building and Construction Magazine, released in June 2009.

Sydney, NSW (PRWEB) June 16 2009 -- By combining an exceptional level of customer service with value for money products and innovative designs, Coral Homes has achieved its original goal of becoming a quality provider of homes at affordable prices.

The Coral Homes story is a testament to how the success of a company is built on the quality of its people and the strength of its reputation Since its humble beginnings in 1990 as a husband and wife team in a small office on the Gold Coast, Coral Homes has grown to become the largest home builder in Queensland, and one of the top 10 largest home builders in Australia, with a building area and display home network spanning from Bundaberg to Sydney.

To the credit of founders Paul and Vicki Sweeney, when the business began, they had only recently moved to the Gold Coast area and had little knowledge of the local market. "We opened with a half page advertisement in the Gold Coast Bulletin. On the first weekend we received not one phone call and I wondered what I had done with our life savings," says Paul. "However we received a call on Monday morning and this call led to our very first sale." In the first year they managed to sell 25 homes.

At that time, Paul and Viki managed all aspects of the business including sales, production estimation, contracts administration, manual plan drawing and site supervision - their skills even extending as far as carpentry.

The first five years of Coral Homes saw a period of substantial growth. The business doubled sales each year from 25-50 followed by 100-200 and then 400 homes in the fifth year. Like the market, sales have been up and down at certain stages; however Coral Homes has been able to maintain an impressive average of 20% growth a year, completing 1200 homes in 2008.

The Sweeney's approach was simple; to provide affordable homes built to a standard which they would expect in their own home and to develop a good reputation based on the trust of their clients, suppliers and employees. That aim developed into a philosophy which has since become the basis of Coral Homes' success.

With such dramatic growth it was crucial to find the right people to manage the business. "Coral Homes employs people who are consistent with company values, and that's a major reason why we have been so successful," says National Operations Manager, Kylie Wood. "We also align ourselves with suppliers and sub-contractors who best fit the value structure of the company. We trust our suppliers to do the right thing, and we'll always support those suppliers who do."

In addition, the company utilises about 400 sub-contracted trades to build its homes (not to mention employees of these sub contractors). Dave Dawson, Coral Homes' National Building Manager believes that due to the large amount of work being outsourced that "without a successful supply chain management process we would not have the ability to complete our projects in minimal time frames, which is what our customers rely on us for- to complete their homes in a minimal time."

Suppliers are vital to Coral Homes, who rely on them to supply all of the materials used in the construction of their homes. "The suppliers deliver all the produced and manufactured products to our building sites to agreed timelines as required by the site supervisors to enable the installation and assembling of products so the projects can be completed," explains Dave.

Today, Coral Homes employs approximately 80 staff at its Head Office in Robina on the Gold Coast and about 35 on-site construction management staff. The company also contracts about 35 sales consultants across 25 display locations.

The editorial feature that went to press in the highly-rated 'Australia's Best' magazine, together with advertisements from key suppliers that Coral Homes selected for inclusion within the feature, can be downloaded for free here: http://beanmedia.com.au/profiles/CoralHomes.pdf

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