Barometer of business success

With forecasts for the fenestration industry’s recovery from the impact of Covid-19 appearing positive, and with a little less than a year to go until FIT Show’s May 21 outing, event director Nickie West offers her thoughts on how she hopes things will shape up for its next installment.

With just under a year to go until FIT Show 21, I have been encouraged by the conversations that we have been having with our peers, exhibitors and prospects, a great number of which are already at up to 80% operational capacity as part of their return to business operations.

I’ve also been encouraged by the data that is being reported across the industry, with commercial business remaining buoyant throughout the Covid-19 lockdown, and a steady flow of domestic leads that have continued to build as homeowners shift their focus to improving and not moving or holidaying.

I was particularly interested to see the reported spike in searches for products such as conservatories. From FIT Show’s perspective, we hope to see this trend translate into a variety of new physical products on display next May.

While conservatories, for example, have typically been a mainstay of the products on display, I’m excited to see what new complementary products are brought to market. From a visitor and, in particular, an installer perspective we are always looking at ways to help them expand their offering to cross and upsell complementary products, so this could go a long way in helping them to do that.

Without giving too much away, we are already looking at ways to enhance the show features and content to help our audience do better business. Be that expediting their financial recovery from the current crisis, or helping them to take that step up from a one or two-man band operation and beyond.

It’s early days, but the conversations that I am having with our stakeholders and the sentiment that I am feeling from across the industry is that this is a storm that we have, and will continue to, weather together.

A number of industry figureheads have highlighted their belief that FIT Show 21 will act as a barometer for business success. My hope is that FIT Show will serve as a beacon for the industry, and a positive milestone for us all to work towards.