Online technology is allowing consumers to start designing kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms in their own homes, but will it bypass the showroom or generate valuable leads? Andrew Davies went over to Canada to see one of the biggest companies in the sector, 20-20 Technologies...

Professional kitchen, bedroom and bathroom designers tend to be a suspicious bunch if they feel their skills and experience aren't being recognised.

That's often with pretty good reason. Convention dictates that those skills aren't something the consumer expects to pay for and the thought that those consumers are now being offered the chance to design rooms themselves will rankle with many.

But technology in this sector is leaping forward in a way that means the only limitation is the willingness of those on the front line to embrace it and realise the potential to increase business.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that's the view of 20-20 Technologies anyway, one of the biggest global providers of design and manufacturing software for the home interiors industry.

In the UK, its principal business is split between providing multiples such as B&Q and Magnet with design software, and its Fusion brand specifically for independents - acquired from Planit in 2008.

For over 20 years, it has focused on supplying businesses with software they can use to design, order and manufacture, but now there's a new strategy - getting the consumer to design rooms themselves and engage with the sales process before they even speak to a retailer.

The company, like so many others, saw at the start of the downturn that it would need to change and adapt to the market that its customers were facing. Chief executive Jean-François Grou (pictured left) made the brave decision not to cut costs in research and development (R&D), but instead to slightly change tack.

"Because of our experience, we were able to help customers get more value out of the investments they'd already made in the technology," he says. "Early on in the recession, we redirected our R&D investment into providing customers with a way of diversifying. So, for example, providing a solution for bathroom design meant our kitchen customers had opportunities to expand."

This redirection also meant expanding 20-20's scope and being more constructive in the way it includes the consumer in its offering. In other words, using the software to attract the interest of consumers at, what it calls, the 'inspiration' phase of the sales process. Straightaway though, established designers will be thinking that this is another snub, a dismissal of what they can bring to a project. Grou is keen to disagree.

"If you're a salesman that is an operator of the software, then you need to be concerned," he says. "But if you're a good designer, you don't need to be worried. The consumer may start the project, but at some point they will always need to speak to someone. Operators of the software don't add value, good designers can transform it into something special.

"The software creates an incredible gap between an average designer and a good one. The tools are there to be used to enhance and enable those skills. If they have talent and invest time in understanding the capabilities of the tools, then they will create designs that will blow your mind. The software should never be accused of creating the common denominator. Yes, it will enable someone who isn't very talented to put a kitchen together, but it cannot design a kitchen."

Online room planners aren't new, of course, in fact 20-20 provides the software that runs the Ikea and Magnet offerings and most software providers in this area have a version. What makes 20-20's strategy new is the desire to join up all aspects of the sales process into one seamless chain, and to make sure it can provide software for all stages that integrates seamlessly.

And giving consumers the chance to play with room layout themselves is simply a way of generating interest and enthusiasm that will lead them on to the next stage of talking to a retailer - they can choose to send the design through to the nearest participating dealer. Likewise, the dealer can have the software on their own website and receive everything potential consumers do, and the linked-up software means the designer can open up their effort in the full 20-20 or Fusion package and obviously make it much better.

Jean-Michel Brière is 20-20's vice-president of marketing and partnership development and, for him, the benefits to the retailer are clear. "All the consumer is really doing is interacting," he says. "It's making the lead-generation process much more accurate. Once someone has gone on to an online planner, there is a much higher chance that they have a genuine kitchen project, and if they send a design to a kitchen specialist, then they are almost certainly doing a project.

"At that point, they are fully engaged. It's not about competing, it's about being complementary and not underestimating the consumer's desire to find out more information and understand the process."

The internal 20-20 project that incorporates this joined-up approach from consumer through to manufacture is called Ideal Space and is the biggest such exercise it has ever undertaken.

"It's a huge project for us," says Christian Dubuc, vice-president of innovation at 20-20, and one of the main drivers of the scheme. "The business has changed in the past few years, and consumers are so much more sophisticated with technology. Online presence is important, but it has to be much more than that now. The Ideal Space project was really about putting the consumer at the heart of the universe. Traditionally, as a software developer, we were always dealing with retailers and specialists, but now we're also dealing with their customers and helping them with that relationship."

The development of new devices like iPads and iPhones has been a big influence on the project too, with the software needing to become so sophisticated that, for the user at home, it seems incredibly simple and can be operated by a swipe of the finger.

"The goal of this project is to do a design in less than three minutes," Dubuc says. "Not the design, but a design. Why? Because the research shows that when a user goes on to a website and starts playing with tools like this, that's how long you've got to get some gratification. If it's too complex, then you'll lose them."

While it already has packages for multiple retailers, a good example of the way independents can take advantage of this kind of technology is a 20-20-led project called Find A Kitchen Pro. An extension of a successful model used by furniture retailers and manufacturers in the US, it is a pilot scheme that enables independent retailers to be fed kitchen leads through the dedicated website (www.findakitchenpro.com). Consumers can play with designs, layouts, finishes and products and the system can then send that design to their nearest 20-20 dealership.

"I spoke to a designer who said 'you're trying to replace us', but that's not true at all," Dubuc says. "We're just trying to make sure the consumer gets involved earlier in the design process."



Bells and whistles
Do users really understand and use the full capabilities of the design software? We asked Jean-François Grou, chief executive of 20-20 Technologies...

It varies a lot. Traditionally, I would say they spend more time understanding the capabilities of it than they would compared with something like Microsoft Word or Excel, so we probably do better in that regard. The issue really is that the customers don't invest enough in renewing their knowledge.

So the person that gets the formal training tends to teach someone else, who then shows someone else, and so it goes on. I would say that many of our existing customers could get 25% more productivity if they just got more training.

The other aspect is that our customers have always demanded more and more visualisation capabilities - more accuracy, better lighting, better textures. But the technology actually has more capabilities than the catalogue will usually allow, so it's about manufacturers investing in their catalogues too.

That will come as visualisation is becoming a very competitive part of the sales process. So if you want consumers to see your product you need to make sure they're seeing the real finishes, colours and details. If you want to do that you need to have good quality data, and that's an area where manufacturers, and even retailers, have traditionally underinvested. So, yes, it's true that the technology is certainly more capable than most users understand, and is in front of the investment that most manufacturers have put into their catalogues.



What's the future?
What will be the next development in technology for the KBB industry? André Chartier (pictured above right), senior vice-president product development at 20-20 fills us in...

3D technology will definitely be important in the future, but it won't involve us all wearing special glasses as, in fact, the technology already exists that doesn't need them.

But those kinds of developments always depend on who the customer is. A shopper will work in 3D because it's easier for them to visualise, for example, but an architect only ever works in 2D because it's quicker and they know how to manipulate it.

What will come is what I call 'augmented reality'. For example, you'll have your iPad, take a picture of the room and the software will recreate the room in the device and you'll be able to add or take things away from that image. You will then move the iPad around and view the new room as if through a window. We're not far from that at all, and it will change the game.

We have to start thinking and predicting these kind of developments several years ahead. I have people now looking forward at the latest devices, going to latest exhibitions and shows, looking at research and data, and predicting what the next development is.
When it's ready, we need to be ready.