The World Floor Covering Association (WFCA) and the Certified Flooring Installers (CFI) have acquired a signed letter of intent to purchase the assets of the Natural Fiber Installers Certification Inc., (NFIC). This strategic move is designed to enhance the capabilities of both organizations and further its shared mission of advancing education and training in the flooring industry.
“We’re super excited to have NFIC as a part of our offering now,” Steve Abernathy, COO of the WFCA and executive director of CFI, told FCNews. “NFIC has carved out a niche in the training space, which is related to natural fibers. This is about taking that education to an even higher level and broadening its access; that’s the focus.”
Established in 2006, NFIC is the oldest and largest recognized certification body in the natural fiber industry. What’s more, NFIC is considered a critical player in the industry with more than 600 certified installers. Its training covers a wide array of materials, including natural fibers such as woven/tufted wools, Axminster, Wilton, velvet, flat weave, sisal, handmade and seagrass.
According to Abernathy, the NFIC certification fits perfectly within CFI’s current offering, even serving as a prerequisite for CFI’s Master II certification. “If you look at market share only and you look at those natural fiber products, it’s a small market share of the overall carpet market but it’s an important share— and those products are very, very difficult to install correctly,” he said. “It takes a high level of skill to do so. So this acquisition was focused on taking the installers’ training and their knowledge to a more advanced level. In fact, informally, we had specified that you needed this NFIC Certification to be able to pass our Master II Certification, so it fits really well in that slot between those two levels that we offer.”
In order to help broaden its reach, this niche training will be taken on the road, as is most of CFI’s training opportunities. “We take our training out into the field in various markets across the United States and Canada, and we’re going to do the same thing for NFIC so that we can bring this to more people and couple it with training that we’re doing with CFI,” Abernathy noted. “This way there will be opportunities to get the full course of training that CFI offers—all the way from the beginning through our Master II Certification on carpet products. So we’re excited about the fact that we’ll be able to bring that to our membership, as well as our WFCA retail members.”
Moving forward, NFIC will operate under the CFI umbrella while maintaining its unique identity. What’s more, the merger will not only grant installers greater access to this niche certification but will also bring NFIC’s training and certification for salespeople and inspectors to a wider audience. “Besides installers there’s an inspection course and an inspector certification for this product category within the NFIC catalog of courses,” Abernathy explained. “Inspecting a sisal installation is quite different than inspecting a regular, synthetic saxony. It’s just a different animal, so there are things that you’ve got to know because it’ll be different than what you can see in a typical installation course of an average product. There’s also a sales course that teaches them about natural products—not only how they’re installed but how they’re made.”
Retail advantages
So, what does advanced certifications mean for the retail community? According to Abernathy, a whole lot. “I think it’s going to be important for the retail community if they want to expand their markets and expand their capabilities and pick up products that they don’t normally carry,” he said. “They will gain the confidence to add these product lines and go after that niche set of the market that is highly profitable and has a much larger per-ticket selling price than just standard, base-grade materials—you’re talking about products that are $150 to $250 a square yard.”
In fact, successfully selling these products at the retail level can be largely tackled by gaining the confidence in the installation behind them. “When it comes to these high-end products, sometimes retailers struggle to find installers who can even do them justice,” Abernathy explained. “Having that credential gives the retailer the confidence to say, ‘OK, if I’m going to sell this very high-end product to a very high-end customer, I’ve got an installer that is fully capable of installing that product on the floor and not cause a claim.’”
Manufacturing benefits, too
The benefits to the growth of this certification doesn’t stop at the retail community. Those who design, manufacture and supply these products also stand to gain.
“They make a beautiful product,” Abernathy said. “Some of these products they’ve been making for well over 200 years. A manufacturer knows from experience that if you take these products and you put them in the hands of somebody who does not know how to install them properly—and sometimes that involves hand sewing, which is a skillset that’s rarely understood and rarely taught today—there’s going to be difficulty even selling those products. Those manufacturers depend on the installer downstream to be able to take the products that they’re making and put them on the floor properly, install them in a way that makes them look beautiful. So they have a vested interest in the training that we do for installers. They want to make sure the installer is invested.”
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