WHY DO YOU NEED INFORMATIONAL,
DATABASE-LIKE SERVICES?
Providing professional information to the Hungarian leather and
shoe industry has always been an integral part of the activities performed by
BIMEO Ltd. and its predecessor organisation. Until now the company carried out
this activity through traditional tools (informational publications, lectures,
training courses). With many years of work and by concentrating its tools, BIMEO
created the appropriate computerized background and modernised its informational
services in conformity with the level of the turn of millennium.
In the second half of the years 80 the leather, footwear and leather processing industries were made up of 20 state-owned big enterprises, 4-5 council enterprises and approximately 100 cooperatives. On the other hand, according to the official data in 2004. there are more than 600 manufacturing companies, which are with a few exceptions small and medium size enterprises. In the same time there are thousands of trader companies (small and large) working in this sector. The number of clothing wholesale trades is approximately 3600. About 50 % of the manufacturing companies have less than 20 employees, more than 90 % of the trader companies have less than 20 employees and 80 % of them only have less than 10 employees.
Unfortunately most of the companies does not have the necessary human and financial resources to acquire the necessary quality and environmental related as well as other professional and market information by its own efforts. Although they feel the lack of these information in their day-to-day activities, as they do not have the thorough grounding and the financial possibilities to acquire them by their own efforts (or to organise the available information) they try to perform their manufacturing-trading activities without them. This causes disadvantages to their companies in every point of view compared to those big and financially stable companies, who can acquire the necessary information in a partly self-supporting way and have the financial possibilities to get the missing information as well.
Those important information, which may be acquired through BIMEO are:
the most important data of the manufacturing, trading and servicing companies from our sector functioning in Hungary;
law and procedure related information regarding quality issues and environmental protection;
environmental and quality testing methods affected by the professional themes;
a summary of the rules, principles, regulations and demands, preferred attitudes in the footwear trading;
methods of quality appraisal: official national and international standards, technical guidelines, quality appraisal guidelines of leading foreign organisations and of BIMEO itself;
environmental protection and waste management related rules, database.
Only an organization having an important, central role in the professional infrastructure, like BIMEO can acquire, process and spread similar information, as a testing and R&D company working mainly in the quality-environmental field, who functions the only technical professional library from the sector.
In the leather and shoe industry having many participants, open in the direction of the EU, in the fashion trade ever changing in the respect of the above-mentioned information, the tradition forms of information spreading are no longer suitable, or have a very reduced efficiency. The lack of the modern ways to get the required information very quickly, the fact that because of this many companies don't even try to get these very important information for their functioning, causes significant financial, market and other losses. That is the reason why BIMEO have established a professional-information system, placing some of the most important information on the Internet, and making possible to reach the more detailed material through the server of BIMEO, as well as distributing some databases on CDs.