SVI Magazine

It’s given us a chance to re-evaluate what our businesses are about, make changes where necessary, put a few things in place and generally make sure we are maximising the opportunities that are out there. As the country comes out of recession, those businesses that have taken a long hard look at themselves and prepared the ground will find themselves in a stronger position than those that have just kept fingers crossed and hoped for the best.

BADA is no different to any other business in this respect – we’ve been using the past year to put our markers in place, so that, as we emerge from recession, the trade association and its offering to its members will be stronger.

education, education, education
With the end of another year fast approaching I thought it would be a good time to take a look back at the activities and achievements of BADA over the past year to try and answer the question, “What is the point of a trade association?”

Customer reassurance is something that comes to the forefront in times of strife – the hard-earned pound has to be spent wisely. That’s one reason why BADA has put so much effort into its training and standards programme over the past year or so. We believe firmly that the differentiation of retailers who are trained to a recognised industry standard has to be a positive move for both the consumer and the businesses involved.

During this last year BADA has achieved a very significant goal and something that it and its members can be justifiably proud of. That is the completion of the Demcraft training programme with all customer facing staff in all BADA dealers trained to a standard that is endorsed by a large number of the major manufacturers. Let’s just look at that once again, because it really does deserve repeating: all customer facing staff in all BADA dealers’ shops trained to the same industry agreed standard. That is around 400 people across the approximately 80 shops which are members of the trade association.

But as Simon Byles, BADA chairman, said at the pre-AGM press conference in the summer, “These course are not about BADA, but about the members and what they can offer.” Simon went on to observe that, “This is, I believe, the first and only occasion in our UK industry’s long history when we have managed to do anything, as a universal training and standards-setting exercise, on anything like this scale.”

But BADA hasn’t rested on its laurels since then. We’ve been working on other courses and have already launched a new and innovative sales training course, Salescraft. Since its launch in May, we’ve already put around 75 people through the course, with outstanding feedback from the candidates. And, as with Demcraft, we’re not limiting it to BADA members; already a major player in our industry has opted to put a good number of its staff through the course.

If that wasn’t enough, we are working on three more courses at the moment: Visioncraft (concerned with the set-up, calibration and demonstration of home cinema systems), an ‘introduction to networking’ course and a ‘marketing for retailers’ course. All of three will be launched very soon – watch this space for more details.

here to help
BADA isn’t just about training courses, though; a lot of time is spent looking after the members’ interests and supporting them as they go about their daily business. Practical help like negotiating discounts on such business essentials as credit card rates, business insurance, car breakdown schemes and carriage contracts makes life a little easier for the members and, most importantly, helps their bottom line.

This year we have continued our excellent working relationship with retra, membership of which is granted to all BADA retailers as part of their BADA membership. This gives members access to retra’s in-house legal helplines, health and safety advice, WEEE directive guidance and the very popular retra insurance services for extended product warranties. Closer links are also being forged with other trade associations and media publications, as we believe that collectively we can be stronger and more effective, providing more for our members and, ultimately, for the industry.

It is a theme that Simon Byles also touched on during the BADA AGM, when addressing the journalists and members of the industry present, he said: “Put simply, we have to be better. We have to offer better standards, better product knowledge, better reliability, better communication and better distribution policies. We see a future, as the UK recovers from the recession, in which the Hi-Fi and home entertainment industry works together for mutual benefit and the benefit of our customers and BADA will be at the centre of this co-operation.”

So let’s get back to the original question of, “What is the point of a trade association?” Because the potential for the Association to work with and help the industry as it emerges from the tough times is so great, and as I hopefully have pointed out, BADA has been working very hard over the past year or so to put coherent policies and schemes in place to do just this. I think it is easier to say what BADA isn’t and hasn’t been for many years, and that is an old boys network, interested only in self-congratulatory soirees to the pub – something it certainly was accused of in the past. Today’s BADA is the trade association for the UK industry, with retailers, manufacturers, distributors, PRs and members of the media all agreeing that driving standards up will be the most effective means by which the industry can survive these turbulent and increasingly competitive market conditions.

If you want to be part of an organisation of like-minded people working for the good of the industry, give us a call or drop us a line. We’ll be very pleased to talk to you.

All that remains is to wish you all the very best for Christmas, and here’s to a prosperous 2010.