Anyone from outside the KBB industry looking in would be staggered to discover the barriers that have accrued to frustrate retailers making full use of current technologies in order to improve their business processes. SMART systems introduced a revolutionary online service that can provide significant improvements in the way retailers run their business. However, the intransigence of a large part of the industry suppliers in supporting technologies prevent both themselves and their retailers from enjoying very significant benefits that are on offer.

Of particular note is the insanity that prevails in the production of pricelists by the industry suppliers. For example, a piece of furniture has only a finite number of variables; raw materials, dimensions (height, width, depth), colour…ranges etc….. yet manufacturers persist in presenting their data in a bewildering array of different formats. Processing this data for onward use is both time consuming and subject to error.

If this was not enough some manufacturers don’t even support their retailers by refusing to make their data available for inclusion in their incumbent systems! They point to the fact that they have their own online facility. One day the penny will drop that the retailer will quite likely be dealing with as many as ten suppliers for a single project. If every supplier adopted this attitude, the poor retailer would be taking a backward step from the traditional paper printed media and spending an inordinate amount of time moving from one web site to another.

Harnessing the power and flexibility of cloud technology, Smart Systems is capable of holding all the industry’s data in one place for quick and efficient retrieval for quoting and ordering. Being centralised online, product data and pricing revisions can be effected in minutes by the manufacturers themselves which will significantly improve the accuracy of the data. £millions could be saved throughout the industry by obviating, or at least reducing, the need for printing expensive paper pricelists.

The concept is not a new one. Germany, for so long the doyen of business efficiency, addressed this issue long ago. Their KBB furniture industry as a whole subscribe to a standard format and all the data is made available from a single source.

Smart Systems hold the key to revolutionizing the way KBB companies do business. However, until KBB suppliers wake up to the fact that we are in the 21st century, the technology that is there for the asking can never be utilized to the best of its ability!!!!

There are of course exceptions to this “head in the sand” mind-set. Smart Systems is currently working with a number of leading and enlightened UK KBB manufacturers to establish a similar centralized database. They not only understand the need to support their retailers in improving their business practices, but recognize the efficiencies available to themselves that more accurate data equals a reduction in the cost of processing. There is no escaping the fact that this is the future. The sooner the rest of the industry wake up to this fact the sooner everybody in it will enjoy the very real benefits!