[Chicago] The North American Association of Floor Covering Distributors (NAFCD) has announced the release of the 2017 NAFCD Financial Benchmarking Report, a profitability analysis of NAFCD members designed to analyze and understand “best practices” of floor covering distributor companies. This financial benchmarking tool addresses critical business questions with unprecedented ease, speed and accuracy, the company said.
This past year, NAFCD's Board of Directors made the enhancement of this program a top strategic initiative, the company said, adding that a new partner was selected, Mackay Research Group, due to their history and success administering industry benchmarking reports. Other changes included a shorter and simpler survey, a Benchmarking Definitions document and a user-friendly final report featuring an interactive dashboard. The association experienced a 40 percent increase in member participation compared to the prior year.
Some of the questions this tool helps to answer includes:
--What is the “profitability gap” between high profit distributors and other distributors?
--What is a competitive gross margin in the floor covering distribution industry?
--What type of productivity should a distributor expect out of their employees?
--Are a distributor’s payroll expenses in line with industry benchmarks?
All distributor survey participants received:
--2017 NAFCD Industry Benchmarking Dashboard – Based on actual distributor data, this customizable report provides industry averages across a variety of metrics and includes text that explains what the results mean.
--How Financial Benchmarking Works – This document tells distributors exactly what to do next with this data.
--NAFCD Individual Company Benchmarking Dashboard – Distributors who submitted data received an Individual Report featuring their exact data to make benchmarking even easier, as well as a visual view of strengths and weaknesses compared to other distributors.
“The NAFCD Financial Benchmarking Report gives us a benchmark as to where we are, how we’re doing and what’s going on. It’s probably the most critical report that the industry puts out,” commented Bill Morrissey, Bishop Distributing.
The report is made available at no cost to participating NAFCD distributors. The 2018 NAFCD Financial Benchmarking Survey will open in April.