There can’t be many industries today that don’t rely heavily on software systems to ensure that both day-to-day processes and longer-term planning run smoothly. Even the local milkman is ‘controlled’ by the click of a mouse these days.

The timber industry, from merchants to primary and secondary processors, is no exception and sector-specific software has been embedded in companies’ businesses for many years. And the motivation to use industryspecific software remains the same as ever.

“Our customers tell us that using software that is designed specifically for their industry gives them a real leading edge,” said Tony Pey, head of product marketing at Kerridge Commercial Systems (KCS).

Other providers agree: “I just don’t think you can shoehorn a generic piece of software to the particular requirements of a merchant, particularly when they sell a lot of timber,” said Phil Davies, commercial manager at Border Merchant Systems. And Nick Hull, customer account manager at Epicor UK, went so far as to say that dedicated and “proven” industry-specific solutions were essential before merchants would even consider them.

“The merchant business has many nuances that are not well catered for in more generic enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions,” he said. “Attempting to tailor these solutions to fit is generally cost prohibitive and the providers themselves are often unfamiliar with the industry as a whole.”

Softec’s business development manager, Ingram Robertson, added that even generic business software systems needed to be flexible and “afford the business owner the ability to operate the way they want to as well as allow for all manner of eventualities for the end user”.

“We believe that what has become more important than having industry-specific software is having a software supplier that fully understands your industry,” he said.

He added that customers were increasingly looking for integrated solutions – ie the consolidation of business processes and analytics into one easy-to-use solution rather than separate systems for sales and purchasing order, stock control and so on.

Phil Davies at Border Merchant Systems agreed: “Customers eventually realise that they need to migrate from a standard accounts system with a bolt-on trading system to specific merchant software.”

“Customers have recognised that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to ERP systems,” added Nick Hull, at Epicor. “The Epicor BisTrack solution collects data from sales, purchasing, finance and supply chain (amongst others) into a common database, allowing a company to share the information, co-ordinate activities and collaborate. Better access to data means that queries can be dealt with quickly and effectively, leading to improved customer loyalty and spend.”

KCS noted customers’ desire for “easy to deploy software”, which could drive greater efficiencies into their business. It said it was also important that forward-thinking solution providers continuously monitored the trends in the software and IT industry in general, sought out new innovations and worked closely with their customers to determine the value proposition that introducing some of these additional innovations may bring.

KCS’s “enhancement” programme introduces new features of its K8 software throughout the year and customers can decide if and when they want to deploy any. These updates include additional apps designed for use across the entire branch network.

“We are also planning the introduction of new features in support of the ‘Making Tax Digital’ initiative that comes into force in April next year,” said Mr Pey.

On average, Border Merchant Systems releases two updates to its CounterAct system each year and all customers receive updates to their core system as part of their support contract.

“In the last issue we added significant improvements to the options to load and update product and stock information from spreadsheets,” said Mr Davies. “We also added an option to import orders generated in specialist showroom software such as Easy Quote and we added a new web-based postcode look-up facility.

“Our updates are more evolution than revolution but we aim to constantly keep CounterAct moving forward.”

Softec’s update and development cycle for TRADER is “perpetual”, said Mr Robertson. “And our customers can request specific updates and changes to meet their evolving needs.”

Epicor also updates BisTrack on a regular basis and said it fostered user community involvement to harness its customers’ knowledge and encapsulate the industry’s best practices and brightest ideas into its software

New Release

At Ten-25, meanwhile, there’s a completely new system on offer with the release of UT400 – a step up from UniTrade 360.

“UT400 is a completely new generation version of our trading and stock control systems, which is entirely cloud based,” said Ian Oldrey, managing director. “It all works online and users can access it through browsers, from tablets, smartphones, Macs and PCs. It is going to increase the usability of the system across businesses significantly.” UT400 is being demonstrated to existing customers and will be launched on the wider market from July. Feedback thus far has been “incredibly good”.

In the first instance UT360 would continue to be the best option for a number of Ten- 25’s customers, said Mr Oldrey.

“UT400 is more of a merchanting tool, so initially 360 is still going to be the best tool for the agency/importer businesses where they are dealing with more advanced functionality with multi-currency and so on. They will eventually come on to UT400, however.”

The new system has introduced a virtual “basket” so users can operate it much the same as they would on online retailer sites such as Amazon or Screwfix.

“Users have the ability to pull together a list of products, either from old orders or from searches, or from customers’ preferred products and can put them into a basket where they can manipulate them and create a cash sale or a purchase order and so on,” said Mr Oldrey. “It is very flexible and it also includes functions such as timelines, so as the user processes orders and looks at customer records this is written onto their own personal timeline so they can very quickly go back in and see what they have been working on.

“We’ve put a lot into the user interface to make it really obvious and straightforward to navigate to the things people want to do but also to prompt them on what they could, or should be working on.”

Online trading

Providing the capability for online trading is very much on Ten-25’s radar, as it is on other providers’.

For example, last year Border Merchant Systems launched phase one of its web portal which gives the option for account customers to log into a portal to carry out account management functions. Phase two will allow them to order goods at their terms for delivery or via click and collect. This is in addition to the system’s existing integration with the Magento eCommerce platform.

“We’ve seen platforms such as Amazon transform how we think about delivery and service and more businesses now seek the benefits that an integrated eBusiness platform can bring,” said Tony Pey at KCS. He added that one of the challenges was to use this channel effectively while retaining the “personal touch” with the customer.

“A lot of what our customers are supplying to their customers is an understanding of the product, not just that they have that product in stock,” agreed Mr Oldrey. “People expect to do an awful lot online these days but I think that, in many instances, they still want feedback from a human being.”

One key aspect of online trading typified by Amazon is that customers have come to expect same day or next day delivery, said Nick Hull at Epicor. “eCommerce is altering the way everyone does business.”

Smartphones and tablets have become commonplace devices for online shopping, whether that’s retail or trade. And some users expect to be able to carry out some quite complex tasks on a small screen.

“You would think that if you were investigating a new trading system you would do it on a reasonable size screen but statistics for our own company website show that 60% of visitors to ten-25.co.uk view it on their mobile phones,” said Mr Oldrey. “So we can’t ignore the amount of traffic through mobile devices.”

Workforces in need of instant access to data are increasingly peripatetic, whether that’s just outside in the yard or further afield at customers’ sites.

“Enterprises are more fragmented today,” said Mr Hull. “Employees are on the go, whether it is working from customers’ sites, from home or out of co-working spaces. As such, business data is always in motion since mobile phones, tablets and apps have become the tools of choice for accessing information.”

The two apps (purchase order and stock check) Border Merchant Systems has developed so far haven’t been a game changer, admitted Mr Davies, but they are being used by a number of customers and the company expects to do more in the future.

“At the moment I think it’s a matter of customers catching up with the technology,” he said.

KCS is introducing a series of apps designed to bring operational benefit to its customers and allow them to “leverage the power of the K8 system on the move”.

“We are seeing a growing trend towards the development and use of apps and believe this will accelerate as businesses begin to realise the advantages that leveraging smartphone devices and apps designed specifically for business can bring,” said Mr Pey.

Ten-25 is also developing apps alongside its core system for functions such as order picking and stocktaking.

“Apps work brilliantly where you have a very specific function to perform,” said Mr Oldrey. “The full system is a lot broader in its view but an app can provide a very clean interface for performing a specific operation.” Not all software providers are convinced about apps, however.

“There is no requirement for us to develop new apps for TRADER,” said Softec’s Ingram Robertson. “The system is already accessible via any mobile device and we’ve seen some customers utilise this by mobilising their stocktaking, their sales processing and their reporting.

“Smartphones and tablets have increased the amount of trading our customers do online,” he added. “TRADER is an adaptive, omni-channel software solution and can interface with any online trading offering.”

Software users have become far more accustomed to cloud-based as opposed to in-house data storage systems over the last five years and it is definitely a growing trend, although providers generally agree that there is room for both.

“Cloud ERP offers merchants the opportunity to benefit from technology at a lower cost of implementation and reduces the need for a full IT department,” said Nick Hull at Epicor. “It also frees up time and bandwidth while maintaining software, servers and other technology infrastructure.”

Having said that, however, he added that customers should choose the deployment model that was right for them – which was also the advice given by Softec.

“It is our responsibility to make sure the customer is aware of the risk and the benefits of a cloud-based solution and that, in turn, they understand the same of a local solution,” said Mr Robertson.

“And the term ‘cloud’ is a very clever marketing ploy,” he added. “There is no cloud. Your software and data is simply on a computer owned by someone else and located somewhere else.”

New Realities

Other concepts that the timber industry is likely to want to get its collective head around are augmented and virtual reality.

“Strides are being made in the fields of artificial intelligence assistants, augmented reality and virtual reality and the local devices that support such interactions between customer and product,” said Mr Robertson.

“These are already being effectively used in consumer retail and there is no reason to believe they won’t be migrating to the timber trade in the near future.”

“Augmented reality will enable users to walk around the yard and see a video image on their tablet, for example and against the products in the yard it can bring up stock information, prices and so on,” added Ian Oldrey. “The technology to achieve this is already available, it’s just a question of whether there is demand for it.”