Las Vegas—As the Internet continues to hold strong promise for businesses to lower cost and improve service to customers, the Carpet & Rug Institute (CRI), in making sure the flooring industry is not left behind on capitalizing on this opportunity, has launched a bold, new business-to-business (B2B) initiative which is sponsored and endorsed by nearly every major player in the flooring industry. Over the last year, a committee representing almost every major manufacturer, distributor, and software systems supplier in the flooring industry, has successfully negotiated a standard language for the electronic exchange of product and order information between any two buyers and sellers across the Internet.

 Using computer systems that comply with this “B2B Standard,” noted Werner Braun, CRI’s president, during a recent meeting with dealers at Surfaces 2002, retailers and distributors will be able to simplify the way they conduct business with their vendors in many ways: • Today, dealers wait days to get bulky product and price reports from their vendors, only to spend valuable time rekeying this information into their own systems. Using the B2B standard, vendors can automatically send all product and price changes to dealers across the Internet, flowing this up-to-date information straight into the dealer’s own pricing file. This will save dealer personnel work and reduce the likelihood of mistakes; •

Dealers will now have a better alternative to phone, fax or Web sites for placing orders for carpet, rugs, laminate, wood, ceramic, resilient or other flooring products. By pushing just a few buttons on their own system, a dealers can send purchase orders to their vendors electronically, and get back a full response within seconds that completes the transaction. Automating the procurement process will also save time and further reduce the chance for costly mistakes, and • There are even features in the standard that provide advance notification of vendor shipments (simplifying the work of receiving vendor shipments) and enable electronic billing, which will make it easier to reconcile accounts payable records.

“This new B2B standard will enable forward-thinking companies in the floor covering industry to leap ahead in their use of computer technology,” said Braun. “Although manufacturers and distributors have used computers for decades to help lower costs and improve customer service, many specialty retailers have not yet taken the plunge to fully automate their business operations. As a result, many retailers spend too much time having to manage a blizzard of paper forms and notes, which eats into sales and margins.” The promise of this new standard is, he noted, the way it will help retailers further automate their time consuming and error-prone back office functions, allowing them to focus more time on activities that generate sales and improve customer satisfaction.

Companies that choose to streamline their processes and use the Internet to conduct business with their vendors will enjoy a significant competitive advantage over their competitors who do not. “Many manufacturers and distributors expect their systems to fully support the standard within the next few months,” said Braun. “The software vendors who sell their systems to dealers are equally committed to completely supporting the standard as quickly as possible. Several companies already offer Internet-based solutions that deliver on some of this capacity. “As companies complete their implementations of the standard,” he concluded, “dealers can expect to receive letters from each supplier announcing their readiness to send and receive electronic transactions. Once a dealer has also implemented a B2B standard-compliant system, he can begin doing business electronically with his vendors across the Internet—then the benefits begin to flow.”

For more information on the Floor Covering Industry B2B Standard, a Web site has been established at www.flooringb2b-standard.com which provides additional information, names and contacts of all participating companies, answers to common questions as well as a copy of the most recent version of the detailed standard specification. —Louis Iannaco