How much of your week goes on chasing suppliers?

Stock checks. Today's price, which isn't last week's price. A surcharge nobody mentioned. A delivery date you have to ring three times to pin down.

All of it already sits in the suppliers' own systems. We just can't get at it properly — so we phone, we email, and we wait.

I want to push the manufacturers and distributors to open that up and put it in one place. They won't move because one flooring company asks. They might if a few hundred of us do.

Answers are used to make the case to suppliers. Nothing is published with your name on it, and there's nothing to sign up for.