ATLANTA—A record number of key stakeholders attended the annual Floor Covering Business-to-Business Association (fcb2b) meeting here last month. Thirty-seven companies representing manufacturers, distributors, software suppliers, buying groups, trade associations, and floor covering dealers and contractors attended two days of meetings to discuss progress of the industry’s B2B standard as well as new technical initiatives, marketing strategies and the launch of the new Web site, www.fcb2b.com.
Aaron Pirner and Pam Bowe, fcB2B’s co-presidents, announced the association will launch an informational Web site this month. “It is specifically designed to give retailers and contractors easy-to-understand explanations as to what B2B technology is and how it will benefit their businesses.”
In addition, the site will show which manufacturers and distributors are capable of conducting business electronically, as well as which software manufacturers are B2B enabled.
Bowe and Pirner noted that industry-wide support for B2B e-commerce “continues to grow rapidly” with more than 20 suppliers including major mills such as Mohawk—including
Dal-Tile—Shaw, Beaulieu, Gulistan, Beaulieu Canada and
Royalty are B2B compliant along with major distributors including
J.J. Haines,
Ohio Valley Flooring, BPI and William M. Bird. Five more manufacturers are currently testing B2B and three more recently committed to moving to the standard by the end of 2008.
In addition, all the major flooring-specific software companies including
RFMS,
QFloors,
Pacific Solutions, Roll-Master, Comp- U-Floor, Vencom and
CDMS are already connecting dealers to B2B enabled suppliers.
The mission of fcB2B is to facilitate efficient business communications within the floor covering and related industries and to promote leadership in the development of ethics, standards and policy throughout the industry. Since its formation, the association has worked diligently with the
World Floor Covering Association (
WFCA), manufacturers, distributors, associations, industry groups and software providers in an effort to create one clear unifying vision that can take the entire flooring industry into a more efficient and profitable future.
To that end, a number of initiatives were established at the meeting with some of the key ones being:
• Target an additional 15 suppliers to adapt B2B Technology.
• Coordinate dealer awareness of B2B with major trade associations such as the World Floor Covering Association (WFCA) and
Carpet & Rug Institute (CRI) as well as mill training/education programs.
• Investigate the use of Web services technology to increase retailer visibility to inventory availability prior to transmitting a purchase order.
• Expand the standards to accommodate the manufacturer and distributor channels.
The reasoning behind some of these initiatives has to do with the overall number of companies currently using the industry’s B2B standard. It is estimated that over 1,800 dealers are using it today.
While this number is increasing on a daily basis, the association recognized it needed to expand its reach to attract and educate more retailers on the number of benefits B2B offers.
Bowe and Pirner said some of the many advantages attached to B2B are to cut costs, reduce errors, save money and free up time for both retailers/contractors and suppliers/manufacturers alike. It also provides dealers with an electronic product catalog that matches their price list, transmits invoices and shipping notices automatically, and allows the retailer to send and confirm purchase orders on a real time basis. Put simply, “B2B technology is designed to add value and provide efficiencies toevery segment of the marketplace.”
To learn more about B2B and the industry standard, visit www.fcb2b.com.
(Editor’s noted: David Marshello and Cheryl Allen of RFMS helped contribute to this story).
