"Digitization is going too slow." That was said by the owner of Easygrow during the Royal FloraHolland general assembly of members. With a smile, but still serious. His companion shares that opinion. "The lines need to be shorter, but we also realize that it's not that easy. Royal FloraHolland has to retain the number 1 position and press on in the field of digitization before somebody else does it."
During the Q&A session, there was also some concern. Are we not investing too much in digitization when we are still not sure whether it's the right step? Lucas Vos responds: "For digitization we have a dot. It's a dot on the horizon. To get there we have to invest. We cannot stop and just wait.”
"In five years from now, everything has to be digitized here, otherwise it will be the end of the auction," says Lucas Vos.
Last year the auction parted with its own automation department, a group of more than one hundred employees. The ICT department has now been outsourced and a new ICT manager has been appointed. Furthermore, the auction uses an external expert who assists the management and commissioners in the digitization issues. FloraHolland invests € 14 million this year in improving the automation.
FloraHolland had to employ two hundred additional workers, because many flowers are still being auctioned with the clock. The expectation was that this would decrease sharply.
As a result, the auction has a lot more logistical work to be done than was predicted. FloraHolland had already reduced the number of logistics staff and now has to hire a lot of extra people to realize the fast throughput times promised to the trade. Vos: "At the peak we had 200 external people at work, but now it’s a lot better."
This means staff costs are hardly going down, where a sharp decrease was expected. It also means that the strategic plan of the auction, FloraHolland 2020, has been adjusted.
Source: Royal FloraHolland / Het Financieele Dagblad