Specific and practical: See digitisation as an opportunity!

As part of FENSTERBAU FRONTALE + HOLZ-HANDWERK 2024, the PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DIGITISATION for Craftspeople Forum will take place on 19 to 22 March 2024 at the Nuremberg exhibition venue. In entertaining and compact power interviews throughout the four-day event, experts and entrepreneurs will explain how networking data, information, and knowledge results in more order, speed, and reliability instead of mountains of paper.

Wide range of topics: Digitalization across the skilled crafts business!

Digitisation simplifies business. Even smaller companies can use intelligent software, perform comprehensive data acquisition and interconnect their planning, production, assembly, administration and timely services!

If you’re still relying on forms, outmoded technologies or hanging files and ring binders for planning, calculation, procurement, on the building site, in documentation, in accounting, with customers, in warehouse management, in production or even in your search for employees and trainees – you’re wasting money!

From investment to innovation tool!

When digitising, it’s important to always keep your eye on the prize! Combine all your business’s work processes. Wherever possible, automate routines to ensure quality and make time for customers. That’s how digitisation of a company changes from a purely technical investment to a valuable tool in daily operations that can also be used to promote an innovative image.

At the PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DIGITISATION for Craftspeople Forum, and based on practical examples of real implementation, skilled craftspeople and experts will describe and discuss the ways that modern technologies are changing everyday business and workplace culture, automating routine tasks, simultaneously speeding up and documenting processes, and making it easier to comply with rules, regulations, and quality standards.

Digital order and job satisfaction instead of mountains of paper!

Paper is a burden. Documents misplaced at the crucial moment, enquiries, and the loss of knowledge due to departing employees are unnecessary drains on your resources. “Contact-free” collaboration must be possible, and not just because of COVID. In the process chain typical of the skilled crafts sector – request, assessment, measurement, calculation, offer, order, implementation, acceptance, billing, analysis – company employees can communicate and interact with customers, external partners, and if applicable, building authorities in ways that are documented digitally, automatically, and traceably. Processes that are modelled on a fully digital basis and cloud-based systems are ideal for this kind of complex collaboration.

“Manual” materials management and organisation is extremely time-consuming, expensive, and stressful due to incorrect materials, material shortages, undetected incorrect deliveries, standard and commissioned materials in one crate, material waste, lack of oversight, and annoying searches. Based on his own successful example, an experienced entrepreneur will explain how you can eliminate these extra expenditures with a digital material flow!

Digital order management ensures efficient processes, because it reduces the amount of paper required. The acquisition and analysis of order data ensures speed, accuracy, and transparency.

And are you already using a chatbot on your Web site – for example, to greet your Internet visitors or to provide fast and uncomplicated answers to standard questions?

Topics for entrepreneurs in the skilled crafts business

Finally, interviews at the PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DIGITISATION Forum will also cover the influence of digitisation on all aspects of a company. These include creditworthiness, acquisition of skilled workers, marketing on social media, the circular economy, and climate protection.

In interviews at the PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DIGITISATION Forum, you’ll learn how everything functions better digitally and how you can take the best advantage of that.

Discussions with audience participation

At the end of each of the four event days, experts and entrepreneurs will take to the forum stage to discuss current topics and challenges relevant to the use of the latest digital technologies.

Here are the scheduled topics:

Why social media? My Web site is good enough!

You’re familiar with the argument: The presence of companies on social media enables real-time interactions with customers, interested parties, and fascinating experts “non-stop”! But why should you bother with social media if your business is already booming? And is it worth the effort to create content and continuously update accounts? After all, you already have a Web site!

How are digital projects successfully implemented?

Good question! The more experts you ask, the more answers you’ll get! Do important criteria for the successful digitisation of a skilled crafts business actually exist? For whom are these criteria relevant? And what do reliability, predictability, speed, a lack of skilled workers, and customer satisfaction have to do with it?

Are the challenges of digitisation in skilled crafts sufficiently known?

Digitisation delves deep into all areas of skilled crafts businesses, including new requirements for daily operations, challenges for management, investments, and expensive qualification measures for employees. The pressures exerted on skilled crafts businesses by the economic environment and society today are tremendous. Are all businesses equally capable of negotiating this balancing act? Is enough being done to help the oft-cited skilled crafts economic engine to meet these challenges?

How profound are the effects of digitisation and connectivity on the skilled crafts?

Digitised skilled crafts businesses communicate differently, plan differently, and operate differently – and that’s practically impossible without a fundamental overhaul of the IT infrastructure. This makes it difficult for many companies to get started and puts investments on hold. What’s a long-term and meaningful foundation for successful digitisation in skilled crafts businesses today? How viable for the future are the different technological approaches to digital solutions? And without IT expertise, how can anyone find their way?

The forum audience will have the opportunity to submit their questions during the discussion!

In the event schedule for the PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DIGITISATION Forum, which is being held at the FENSTERBAU FRONTALE + HOLZHANDWERK 2024 from 19 to 22 March 2024, you’ll find the forum schedule and all the topics of the practical interviews and discussions with entrepreneurs and experts, including times and information on the participants.