Smart Ready Not Ready For FIT Risk - SAC Sacks Expo

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Smart Ready and SAC Hardware have confirmed that they will be bowing out of FIT 2021 in September. Smart Ready had taken a huge amount of space spread over two stands. This will come as a huge blow to the event organisers.

Sac Hardware was due to unveil new hardware solutions for the way windows and doors are fabricated and installed.

Giovanni Laporta, MD and inventor of Smart Ready has said he felt compelled take this tough decision: “Our brands are 100% passionate about FIT. Personally, I love the show because it plays one of the most important roles in our industry to showcase innovation person-to-person, something my brands are all about.

“However, hand on heart, I believe life at the moment is just too uncertain and September, less than two months away, is too high risk from a commercial and a safe-guarding perspective.

 “Understandably people are doing everything they can to ignore the obvious - there is a third wave on its way with whatever restrictions come with that third wave.”

– Giovanni Laporta 

Managing director, Smart Ready & SAC Hardware

"The government changes what is says on a daily basis," adds Smart Ready's Laporta.  "On the eve of Freedom Day, the government moved from confidence to an end to lockdown in absolute terms, to ‘hoping and ‘no guarantees’ Equally worrying is the continued use of the phrase ‘we will be driven by data' as the data is not looking good.

Safety most important

Laporta continues: "FIT is a focal point for the industry and should give the perfect environment to safely present new developments, share ideas, get market feedback and showcase the culmination of the creativity, design ideas and innovation that have been embraced since the last show. So, as one of the exhibition’s most staunch supporters, the decision to withdraw from September’s show was very difficult to say the least.

"Ultimately, the safeguarding of my team comes as high priority as standard."

Supply chain

“But it’s not only the legal /health backdrop that has driven my decision. As all of us know, there are massive supply chain issues. Supply within our sector is at is most fragile and unstable standing that I’ve ever seen with mind-blowing price hikes increasingly becoming the norm. We are already seeing in the marketplace that looking at new products is not high on anyone’s agenda. Currently, the industry’s focus is on managing existing customers’ expectations and ultimately, to make sure the day-to-day business flows. At the moment the appetite for new products just isn’t there, which for us, is what the FIT show is all about. Exhibiting in eight weeks’ time would essentially be gambling and playing roulette with my brands’ finances in this climate. This is not something I’m not prepared to do"

Picture: Giovanni Laporta has explained why Smart Ready and SAC Hardware have quit FIT.

www. smartready.com  

Article written by Cathryn Ellis
21st July 2021

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