Nashville, Tenn.—Lewis Davis, senior director of technology and research, World Floor Covering Association, announced the formal plans for the fcB2B Annual Meeting, to be held here September 19-21 at the Embassy Suites Hotel located adjacent to the Nashville International Airport.
According to Davis, the annual meeting is where the industry comes together to focus on continuing to optimize the EDI Standards for the flooring industry and work toward increased adoption. It is an opportunity to review changes made to the standards, discuss and determine how best to solve them. “This year’s meeting will focus on ensuring that the industry adopts Version 3.0, the latest EDI Standards version with certification,” said Davis. “fcB2B has worked to ensure that quality and consistent data is exchanged and that retailers can effectively process the data, increasing efficiency, order accuracy and ultimately, adding to the bottom line.”
Davis said it had been 20 years since the industry came together to develop the first fcB2B standard, and several updates have been made since then. Still, adoption has not been consistent throughout the industry, resulting in inconsistencies in implementation. “Version 3.0 was created a few years ago to streamline the information and include rules to ensure consistency among members offering fcB2B services,” Davis continued.
The 2022 meeting will address many updates to the suite of services, including: the adoption of web services designed to allow retailers to more easily connect with suppliers and increase ease and efficiency of implementation; fcB2B’s involvement with CARE to create a retail software solution to reflect the CARE program’s April pricing changes in the Catalog; and updates on fcB2B’s continuing efforts to accelerate adoption rates of B2B across the industry.
“In essence, fcB2B pushes the flooring industry to do what many other business sectors have done years ago: go paperless,” Davis said. “We were formed to set a standard of e-commerce for the flooring industry. Regardless of whether you are a manufacturer, distributor, software company, retailer or affiliate group, everyone wins when we use the same technology.”
Members and non-members are welcome to attend the fcB2B meeting. Cost of attendance covers all meeting events, including: the welcome reception, lunch, breaks throughout the meeting, and all meeting materials. Take advantage of the early bird rate of $650 and register for the Annual Meeting before Sept. 4, 2022. Registration increases to $750 on Sept. 5. fcB2B has secured discounted room rates for the Embassy Suites. Reservations can be made online, or you may call 800-EMBASSY and use the group code “WFC” to book.