BOSS show off their new UniForm
New product launches are the lifeblood of the growth of the Business Supplies industry and speed to market and breadth of adoption are key to their success. Vendors have always been asked by resellers and wholesalers to supply data in a variety of different formats to support the launch of their new products so that those products can be then listed in catalogues or online. That work can be time consuming and costly and frustrating for the vendors as they are just repeating the same data provision process but in different ways.
So BOSS asked their Synergy Data Committee, chaired by Richard Wallington to see if all the major stakeholders could agree to a standard format form which would satisfy the requirements of the vast majority of the vendors and resellers, and reduce unnecessary duplication and cost.
As a result of their work the BOSS Standard Product UniForm was created and is now ready to be used by EVO, SPOT, and Dealer Groups as well as all the manufacturers and resellers to both request and receive new product data.
"It seems an obvious thing to do, and it's great news that BOSS have finally achieved something we've all talked about for a long time," said Mark Knibbs, Chairman of the BOSS Manufacturers Forum.
"We sent someone from our team to all the meetings and the committee have managed to get this small but significant project completed with co-operation across our trade," commented Steve Haworth, CEO of EVO Group when he heard the news.
The new form has been called the UniForm to reflect the unified and simplified approach. It has already been adopted for use and some of the specialist data providers like Fusion Data have already incorporated it into their automated extracts.
"We are now working with BOSS on verification processes to ensure that the UniForm can be used automatically while providing optimized right-first-time data for the subscribers to our data feeds" Steve Bilton of FusionPlus Data commented.
"It's a simple way to take a bit of extra cost out of our industry and we have actively supported this project and been involved. It's good to see it cross the finish line," said Jeff Whiteway, CEO of the Spicers OfficeTeam (SPOT) Group.
"I'd like to commend the work that the dedicated Synergy committee under Richard and Chris Anstey have achieved in getting the UniForm to be a reality," said Geoffrey Betts, the new Chairman of BOSS. "The committee has been very active and members have given their time freely and enthusiastically to help the whole trade operate more efficiently. That's at the core of our new BOSS values and we are proud to have helped facilitate this initiative."
The BOSS UniForm is free to use and can be downloaded here.