No time to price
Out of roughly 200 requests a month, only about half get properly priced. Some are too small and declined, others get only a rough number.
An anonymised case study of one custom furniture manufacturer. No names and no prices, only the market, its everyday problems and how all of it could work better.
This study is based on a real conversation with someone in the market. All data is anonymised.
Custom furniture manufacturers design and build unique furniture, from a single kitchen to the interior of a whole house or apartment. No two projects are the same, and the final price depends on thousands of combinations of materials, hardware and construction choices. That is exactly why fast and accurate pricing becomes one of the hardest everyday jobs.
A client sends a project, usually a PDF and sometimes a drawing. The company prices it by hand. An experienced person prices a simple kitchen in about a minute, because they have a worked out price per square metre. But a large, complex project, a whole house with non-standard wall panels, glass, metal and an architect's custom solutions, can be priced accurately only by a few experienced people, and it takes days.
Only those who have worked in the field for years can price accurately from experience. A new employee cannot do the same, so the whole company leans on just a few people.
Out of roughly 200 requests a month, only about half get properly priced. Some are too small and declined, others get only a rough number.
A complex project takes 2 to 4 days to price, sometimes a whole week. There are around 20 such large projects every month.
Only experienced staff can price accurately. That becomes a bottleneck, and the process does not scale as the company grows.
Nobody pays for estimates. Every hour spent calculating is a pure, never reimbursed cost.
While a quote takes days to prepare, the client often goes with whoever answered faster. A slow reply costs real orders.
Material prices change every week, so a 100% exact price is impossible. The realistic goal is about 90% accuracy, but fast.
Imagine a tool that does most of the calculation itself and leaves the person only to check and confirm.
Reads the sent PDF or drawing, recognises elements and walls, and measures them by scale.
From the drawing it creates a detailed list of materials and quantities, the way an experienced estimator would.
Pulls prices from the company database and calculates most of the total automatically.
The result: an estimate at about 90% accuracy that any team member can prepare, not just a few experienced people.
A fast quote reaches the client while the job is still there to win.
Experienced people no longer lose days to calculation and spend time on more important work.
Every estimate is calculated the same way, with fewer mistakes and fewer disputes.
Pricing no longer depends on two or three people, so the company can take on more work.
Out of roughly 200 enquiries a month only about half get a proper price, because one large estimate takes two to four days.
Estimating is unpaid work. Every hour spent on it is a pure cost nobody ever covers, so the most expensive work in the company is the work nobody pays for.
The project is read automatically, a bill of quantities is produced and prices are pulled from the company database, so pricing no longer depends on two or three experienced people.
The quote reaches the client the same day instead of a week later, and the experienced staff are freed for more important work.
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If time and clients slip away the same way in your market, let's talk. Together we will look at how this could work in your company.