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Above left: James Mitchell updates customers on KCS developments at Konnect in Ireland Above right: KCS regularly launches new apps
“The industry estimates it’s about 43% owned by private equity now and believes that will rise to 65% within the next two years,” said James Mitchell, KCS managing director UK, Ireland and the Nordics. “In my view that’s important because those businesses look to create value and one of the great ways of doing that is by being efficient in their processes and set-up and by having economies of scale,” continued Mr Mitchell. “They want lots of outlets and lots of merchants because that gives them greater buying power. They are also looking for great IT systems that can centralise back-office functions, purchasing, order processing, price book cataloguing and so on for the whole group. They can only really achieve that by going digital and with help from business solution providers such as KCS. “We are pleased to have some 70% of the top 20 merchants in the UK using our products and – absolutely – they are asking us to provide them with digital solutions across the board.
“The independents also know they need to digitise and, although they are not as advanced as private equity-driven businesses, they are getting there at a different pace.” When it comes to e-commerce [as opposed to ERP system implementation] BisTrack provider Epicor is less convinced of the march of digitisation across the timber industry, pointing to challenges outside the sector’s control. “We haven’t seen as many new e-commerce projects among our timber customers this year,” said Adam Lee, Epicor’s sales manager, UK distribution. “Overall, the sector has faced challenges from macro-economic conditions, such as [high] interest rates, which have slowed the pace of investment. “Perhaps e-commerce is no longer seen as
a ‘new’ endeavour and most of our customers who found it suitable have already initiated their strategies,” he continued, adding that those who have invested are continuing to improve their sites.
“There’s also increased competition from national distributors and alternative marketplace providers, or other e-commerce approaches, such as NearSt,” he added, more of which later. Accessibility to digital solutions has come on in leaps and bounds and if the question is ‘is there an app for that?’ the answer is probably ‘yes’.
KCS held its regular Konnect event in Ireland in May (the next Konnect in the UK will be in March 2025) and brought customers up to speed with apps it brought to the UK market through last year.
“These are gaining significant traction,” said Mr Mitchell. “Companies such as Howarth Timber, for example, are using our electronic proof of delivery app – ePOD – which runs on a smart device, throughout their fleet. MKM is putting this technology into all their vehicles and Joseph Parr is also deploying it within their fleet. “We’re enhancing that app with the ability
to take payment at the point of delivery,” added Mr Mitchell. “The ability to take a credit card payment at point of delivery is powerful.”
Other KCS apps winning fans among merchant customers include ePick and eReceipt and the company has also brought out an app for stock checking in branch. This provides the ability to undertake full and perpetual stock takes, and also ad hoc counts. “We’re also bringing out an app for eSales,” said Mr Mitchell. “We are seeing more merchants looking for the ability to take
orders on the road – or even in their own depots where sales assistants with iPads can take orders for customers.
“One of our customers is currently looking to create a fast fulfilment system, where the tradesman comes into the depot, orders his goods and within eight minutes of placing the order, all the items will be loaded onto his van in the yard. The only way they can do that is by digitising the order process, making it a lot quicker in the depot.” Another product being introduced by KCS is the integration of authorisation processes onto mobile devices. Although not strictly an app, it will enable hyperlinks to authorise events. For example, a salesperson in a branch needing permission from their manager to offer a discount can get instant authorisation.
Upgrades and updates to ERP systems have also come thick and fast. “We’ve worked with so many timber companies in the past that there’s a lot of functionality already out there, but clients still ask for capabilities that are very specific to them,” said Ian Oldrey at Ten-25. “That helps them run their business and also enhances the product overall. “We have a timber agent client and we’re adding in a lot of functionality for them around making sales as an agency. Some functions come out of a client’s particular requirements but other functionality we add in speculatively, such as suggested re-ordering. No one was specifically requesting it, but we’ve added it in and everyone gets the benefit.”
Functions within Merchanter that have proved useful and popular include the ability to track unique items – individual pieces of timber, or power tools, for example – purchase invoice matching and stock taking. ►
www.ttjonline.com | July/August 2024 | TTJ
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