Plenty of input on Floriday from FPC members
On the Members' Council advice, sessions are this month being held where Royal FloraHolland and market parties will explore the options for the Floriday follow-up approach. The aim of these is to determine which functionalities users still require for working with Floriday, and what could be improved. The sessions held last week included several with FPC members. A step-by-step plan is being drawn up based on these, as requested by the Members' Council in late January.
There were a total of 30 participants over the three FPC-member sessions. The majority of growers indicated their need for a clear schedule: they would like to know what functionality they can expect on Floriday, and when. They are trying to identify their own input to this, but have been unable to see this featured in the general schedules currently being presented for key topics. Possible improvements to functionalities already available on the platform were also discussed. Ideas were exchanged on how to better align the purchase tip with grower and buyer processes, and the desire to work with real-time prices and stock was debated at length. It was also noted that when developing the platform, the collaboration between the various parties needs to be improved. While this partly refers to Royal FloraHolland’s collaboration with growers, buyers and software suppliers, the desire for increased contact and collaboration between growers themselves was also expressed.
Martin de Ruiter, 100% Digital Programme Manager, believes their constructive atmosphere makes these session highly rewarding. “We clearly haven’t been doing this well enough up to now. That’s hit me, and I really want to start improving. Growers are saying the pressure from us has become too intense, and they’d like even more involvement in ensuring the changes this means for their gardens go in the right direction. The fact that participants are genuinely willing to help us through their involvement in improving Floriday is benefiting the common goal: putting the digital platform for floriculture in place. We’re receiving a great deal of valuable input, and having proper dialogues on the functionalities desired. We also realise that there are many different and even often conflicting interests. Although choices inevitably still have to be made, those deliberations are based on these sessions."
Follow-up approach with enough time for implementation
The sessions with software suppliers began three weeks ago, and others with BlueRoots, Plantform, Flora Futura, VBW and SLB are being held over the next few weeks. These discussions will help us devise an approach that grants users and software suppliers sufficient time to implement Floriday successfully. We will be providing the market with further details on the follow-up approach at the end of March. We are working on an updated list of all the input, indicating which topics are being prioritised, and which we will be publishing.
