Dealer Support 2014

December 2014 Issue 234

INSPIRING BUSINESS SOLUTIONS FOR DEALERS

DEALER SUPPORT DECEMBER 2014 | ISSUE 234 BIG IN 2015 | THE HUMAN OFFICE | 3D PRINTING

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ERGONOMIC APPEAL The dealer focusing on workplace health ANOTHER DIMENSION The rise of 3D printing

Colop UK Ltd thank you all for your invaluable custom and wish you a wonderful Christmas and year ahead full of good health, peace, contentment and profitability.

Thank you to all of our customers this year, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from everyone at Avery UK (@UKAvery)

Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Let us help keep your Xmas stocking fuller for longer in 2015.

New year, new connections, new business.

Wishing a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2015 to all of the readers of Dealer Support magazine.

We would like to wish all our customers a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous year in 2014.

From all of the team at Collins, we would like to wish all our customers a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2015. Synaxon UK delivers a portfolio of unique tools, service and support that add strength and depth to independent IT resellers.

Thank you for your support in driving our success in 2014!

In partnership we all will succeed, best wishes from OKI for 2015.

FROM THE EDITOR

Time to take stock On behalf of Austin, Matthew and the rest of the team at Dealer Support, thank you for your support.

Have a great Christmas and a very happy New Year.

As we all wind up for the Christmas season, the much-needed break is a great time to take a step back, take a deep breath and think about how your business can work to its full potential in the New Year.

The title of Integra’s recent conference – Changing Times – seemed appropriate given the no doubt bumpy road ahead for independent dealers. While we can’t accurately guess exactly what the future holds, we can safely predict that more changes will take place. Whether that’s in terms of the wholesalers – we don’t really know how recent acquisitions will shake down and what impact they will have on dealers – or moves by distributors, manufacturers looking at their routes to market or moves by dealers to enter new markets, this industry simply won’t stand still.

With so many unknowns and plenty of volatility in the industry, perhaps now is the time to look at your own business and ensure everything is in order. You can’t predict what’s happening around you, but you can use the quieter days in the run up to the festive period to take stock and consider how you can grow. What untapped skills are lying dormant amongst your workforce? Can you diversify into new areas? What link sales can you make to extract an extra few quid out of your customers? What help can you avail of from your wholesaler, dealer group or manufacturers? Or, where can you strip costs out of your business? The final question is answered by Office Power’s Simon Drakeford on page 50 – his article makes for interesting reading.

As always, I’m keen to hear from you about where you feel the channel is headed. Please do get in touch on editor@dealersupport.co.uk with your thoughts, gripes and praise.

On behalf of the entire Dealer Support team, I would like to thank you for your support through the year – we’ve enjoyed getting out and about to meet many of you and look forward to more of the same in 2015. In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas break.

editor

EDITOR Austin Clark austin.clark@intelligentmedia.co.uk

DESIGNER/PRODUCTION Peter Hope-Parry peter.hope-parry@intelligentmedia.co.uk

SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER – MEDIA SOLUTIONS Matthew Moore matthew.moore@intelligentmedia.co.uk

SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Natalia Johnston natalia.johnston@intelligentmedia.co.uk

ACCOUNT MANAGER – MEDIA SOLUTIONS Krystle Davis krystle.davis@intelligentmedia.co.uk

PUBLISHER Vicki Baloch vicki.baloch@intelligentmedia.co.uk

DESIGNER Sarah Chivers sarah.chivers@intelligentmedia.co.uk

CONTACT US

intelligent media solutions one tetbury place, business design centre 52 upper street, london N1 0QH tel: 020 7288 6833 fax: 020 7979 0089 email: info@intelligentmedia.co.uk web: www.dealersupport.co.uk web: www.uspmagazine.com

Annual subscriptions are ABC available at a cost of £68.00 for UK and overseas by surface mail, £90.00 for airmail. Subscription enquiries should be sent to the address opposite Dealer Support is the leading monthly publication for dealers in the business supplies industry. It provides information on the industry (both in the UK and overseas), information for and about the UK’s independent dealers, as well as information and advice on running a small business.

The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily the views of the publishers. Copyright of all the material published remains with Intelligent Media Solutions Limited.

No part of this magazine may be reproduced, copied, stored in an electronic retrieval or transmitted, save with written permission or in accordance with provision of the copyright designs and patent act of 1988.

Printed in the UK by Buxton Press www.buxtonpress.co.uk

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and prosperous and Happy 2015. KYOCERA provides sustainable printing solutions to the UK’s public, private and third sectors.

T: 0845 710 3104

Thank you for doing business with us in 2014. We look forward to providing you with the software tools to ensure your business remains profitable in 2015 and beyond.

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and New Year.

Here’s to continued success in 2015.

The Fellowes team would like to wish all our customers a Happy Christmas. Thank you for your continued support.

Here’s to a successful 2015!

VOW would like to thank everyone for their continued support in 2014 and wish everyone a joyous festive season and a very prosperous New Year.

With best wishes for the festive season and many thanks to all our resellers from the Samsung UK Print Team. Have a well deserved Christmas break. www.samsung.com /uk/printers

Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Look forward to a brilliant 2015 together!

A huge thanks from Monkey and all at PG Tips for your support in 2014. Have a great Christmas and prosperous New Year.

INSPIRING BUSINESS SOLUTIONS FOR DEALERS

CONTENTS Wishing all our valued members and supply partners a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

From the team at Integra Office Solutions.

December 2014

INDUSTRY 06 NEWS AND VIEWS The latest news and views from the office products industry 10 BIG DATA Why is data so important in today’s marketplace?

14 PLAIN SPEAKING Office Club’s Mark Austen shares his views 20 HOT PROPERTY The products predicted to be big in 2015

Cabor mo por mosae.

Et Wishing ourincustomers a very deligen imporume occum happy Christmas and ex endam ipsunt delThanks iur prosperous New ma Year. repedig natur, ut ea vitiunt for your support in 2014. eosandent offic tem

26 PAPERWORLD PREVIEW What can you expect to see at the 2015 edition of the giant exhibition?

30 CHANGING TIMES The best of the action from Integra’s annual conference

PEOPLE 32 ERGONOMIC APPEAL The dealer focusing on workplace health 38 60 SECONDS WITH… Kiran Mistry, MD of COLOP UK

MANAGEMENT 40 ANOTHER DIMENSION The rise of 3D printing 44 A PARTNERSHIP APPROACH Is MPS easier to sell if you work closely with a vendor?

50 STRIPPING OUT COST How to cut costs and create an efficient business 52 STOP TYPING START TALKING Could dictation save businesses time and money?

USP Thanks to all our suppliers, members and team for a terrific 2014.

Have yourselves a merry friendly Xmas time.

56 SALES ACADEMY Why it’s now time to flex your sales muscles 59 FINAL WORD How education is benefitting from progressive print

INDUSTRY

NEWS

NEWS OKI celebrates 30 years of innovation

FRILLO COMPLETES CLAUGHTONS ACQUISITION

OKI Europe is celebrating three decades of innovation in the EMEA printer market, including the launch of Europe’s first LED printer in 1989 and several more ‘industry firsts’.

This significant anniversary was celebrated by OKI employees from across the EMEA region who came together in Athens to mark the historic company landmark.

Today, OKI has offices in 23 European countries and operates in 60 countries within EMEA. The first office in the region was established in 1984 in Dusseldorf, Germany. OKI Europe went on to pioneer many industry firsts, building a strong reputation for quality and market changing technology.

“We are incredibly proud of OKI’s significant contribution to the EMEA printer market over the last 30 years and the major product breakthroughs we have achieved,” said Terry Kawashima, MD, OKI Europe. “Our continued roadmap of innovation and strong European partner links have been fundamental to our success and will doubtless help us to accomplish our vision for future growth.

“OKI has a fantastic heritage of product innovation. We have always placed the customer at the forefront of our innovations and developed technology to address issues they may not realise they even had. Our latest white toner LED printers and five-colour printer are recent examples of how we continue to exceed customers’ expectations.

“Over the past 30 years, OKI Europe’s dedicated team, along with our strong partner network of distributors and resellers, has helped the business overcome some tough challenges and grow to become a market leader. The fact that they have continued to drive OKI’s product innovations has been key to our ongoing success.”

For further information on OKI Europe’s 30 years of innovation, including an innovation video and history board, visit www.okieurope.com/30Years-Innovation

Hull-based Frillo has recently expanded its operations by purchasing Claughtons Stationery & Supplies. The move will see Frillo expand its customer base in Hull and East Yorkshire with the help of the existing team from Claughtons.

Gerard Toplass, Frillo’s founder and CEO, commented: “By acquiring Claughtons Stationery & Supplies, Frillo now has one of the best, most established teams in this sector in the area to help us expand our unique ‘Amazon for Business’ proposition.

We’re really looking forward to expanding the team, growing our business and building on our customer base in Hull and East Yorkshire.”

Sales account manager, Karen Turner, who will be running this side of the Frillo business, said: “Now that we’ve moved to Frillo it’s a really exciting opportunity to offer our customers a better, more convenient way to buy all the products they need in one place.

“We’ve contacted our existing customers about the changeover to Frillo, reassuring them that the team they’ve been dealing with for over two years will be exactly the same, and we’ll be giving the same excellent levels of customer service we’re well known for. The feedback we’ve had from our customers about the Frillo changeover has been extremely positive.”

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

NEWS

Sheaffer purchased

by AT Cross A.T. Cross Company, a portfolio company of Clarion Capital Partners, has completed the purchase of Sheaffer, BIC’s fine writing instrument business.

A statement released by Clarion said: “By leveraging the individual strengths of Cross and Sheaffer, two authentic, American fine writing brands, the A.T. Cross Company is well-positioned to be a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, marketing and sale of premium, high-quality writing instruments.”

Clarion Capital Partners is a mid-market private equity firm with investments in a variety of sectors including business services and consumer products.

Flying start for VOW’s new MPS offering

VOW’s new MPS programme has got off to a flying start. Partnership agreements have been signed with 78% of the resellers that attended its launch roadshow events back in September.

Designed to help resellers sell MPS to their customers with complete confidence, the MPS initiative has been structured by VOW in consultation with the MPSA (Managed Print Services Association) to provide a more flexible and accessible solution, with improved invoicing, reporting and communication tools.

Owen Costen, group MPS manager, said: “We’re delighted with the reaction from resellers at this early stage. We’ve worked hard to deliver an easy to understand proposition that gives the reseller an uncomplicated way to move into the MPS market, increase revenue streams, fend off transactional competition and achieve longer term security. This is a true end-to-end MPS solution that is flexible, genuinely multi-branded and gives end users exactly what they need.”

Office Club names date for 2015 Conference Office Club has announced that the group’s 2015 annual Conference will take place in Stratford-upon-Avon on the weekend of 5 and 6 June 2015. The venue for the event is the Holiday Inn, which has recently had all its public areas refurbished, including a delightful garden and patio area that leads down to the canal.

Office Club MD, Mark Austen, announced: “We are excited to be planning our 2015 conference and are delighted with the choice of venue which will be the perfect setting for a weekend of business, networking and pleasure; geographically accessible for the vast majority of our members as we look to host a growing number of attendees.

STEWART SUPERIOR CELEBRATES 20 YEAR MILESTONE

Stewart Superior is celebrating 20 years since first opening its doors back on 4 November 1994. MD Geoffrey Betts said: “This is a very proud day for me. I have been blessed with having some wonderfully loyal staff over the years and been able to build a business on the back of it. I am still as enthusiastic today as I was when I started and can’t thank everyone enough who has been involved in our journey, customers and suppliers alike.’’

SPICERS ANNOUNCES BRILLIANT PARTNER/ CITY LINK PARTNERSHIP Spicers has signed a strategic partnership with City Link that will directly benefit its Brilliant Partners by enabling them to access a broad range of logistic services, whether sending small or large consignments across the UK or around the globe.

Simon Wallis, business development director at Spicers, commented: “We have negotiated tiered consignment delivery rates on behalf of our Brilliant Partners. A number of partners who were consulted ahead of a formal launch have already switched to City Link, attracted by both the competiveness of the proposal and the excellent service and support proposition being offered.”

City Link was acquired by Spicers-OfficeTeam owner Better Capital in April last year.

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INDUSTRY

NEWS

Deeside dealer scoops award double Deeside-based B2 Group has been named as the winner of two prestigious Flintshire Business Awards at a gala presentation evening attended by more than 200 business people.

The north Wales Xerox concessionaire won the ‘Business of the Year’ title in the category ‘with up to 50 Employees’, together with the accolade of ‘Business Person of the Year’ for owner, Paul Rutt.

Formed in 1991 and with offices in Deeside and St. Asaph, North Wales, B2 provides cost effective managed print services, document management solutions and printers together with prestige office items.

“Having recognised and reacted to our clients’ requirements over the past 23 years, here at B2, we pride ourselves on providing only the highest level of customer service and it is this, coupled with our ability to really get under the skin of our clients that has given us such a strong edge on our competitors,” said Rutt. “To be recognised by the Flintshire Business Awards for our contribution to the region is humbling and I am delighted to have been chosen as the recipient of such an esteemed award.”

Sennheiser appoints new channel sales manager Graham Meloy has been appointed to the role of channel sales manager for Sennheiser Communications.

As part of a drive to develop and invigorate reseller relationships in the channel, Meloy‘s responsibilities include recruiting quality resellers tasked with pushing Sennheiser Telephone headsets, and further developing Sennheiser’s business relationships. His aim is to provide a “value proposition” to resellers with a range of tools including sales incentives and margin opportunities.

Meloy’s background ensures he is well placed to build these relationships after forging an excellent reputation in developing new business within the reseller chain. He has significant channel experience with major brands such as Xerox, Epson, Konica Minolta and Mainline Communications.

DIARY 23 January 2015 VOW Green Light Hilton Metropole, Birmingham

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23 April 2015 Integra Expo 2015 Leicester Tigers Stadium, Leicester

DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

news in brief...

BETA STRENGTHENS AV TEAM Beta Distribution has announced the appointment of Ian Strange as audio visual specialist. Strange joins from Ingram Micro where he was technical product manager and will be directly involved in supporting both the Beta sales team, and key customers, in all aspects of the AV product range.

EVOLUTION ACQUIRES FREEMAN CONTINGENT Evolution Software has acquired Irish-based custom software development company, Freeman Contingent. Evolution’s MD, Patrick Donnelly, said: “Freeman Contingent will add further strength and depth to our in-house development team, as well as enabling us to provide custom e-commerce solutions built on the Magento platform, tuned for the office products industry, and aimed at those dealers who want something a little different.”

TOSHIBA TEC TO MERGE DIVISIONS Toshiba Tec has announced the merger of its multifunctional printing products division (MFP) with its barcode printing division (BCP) in Europe to meet the demands for growthoriented companies. The integration of the two Toshiba Tec printing divisions will, according to Toshiba, enable customers to drive profitable growth through a unique blend of choice and flexibility.

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INDUSTRY

THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA

BIG DATA As more and more business product and service transactions are completed and researched online, product data is becoming more and more important. Austin Clark finds out why data holds the key to the future success of the office products industry

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THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA

A

s more and more business is completed online, resellers of office products and business services need to focus increased attention on the information and product data they offer to customers via their websites and online catalogues. Gone to some degree is the ability of salespeople to talk up the benefits of products to a customer – as Generations X and Y become today’s buyers information is needed online.

According to research by GE Capital, 81% of purchasers do product research online before buying, even if the final purchase is eventually made over the phone or in person at a trade counter or in a shop.

That shows the importance of data to this industry.

David Dear, group data manager at Euroffice, comments: “Product data underpins the whole ecommerce experience. It allows the product to be found, either through the description being indexed by search engines like Google and Bing, or customers using an in-site search system. The attributes applied to the products allow customers to filter their search results to exactly their requirements, and say the perfect colour or size, without the need to laboriously scroll through pages of thumbnail images.

“Once the customer has found their product the role of the data is then to sell it to them. It needs to be able to answer their questions. The web makes it very easy for sites to offer vast inventories, but the risk of this is that a customer is then confronted with an overwhelming choice of similar products. Why is one product more expensive than another? What are the advantages of this model over that one? The product data needs to be detailed enough for customers to be able to answer these questions.

“I also think that online has always had an issue with trust – if I go to a physical store I can see the product, I can pick it up and perhaps even try it out.

As a consumer myself I will often check out a product on the high street before going home to purchase online. Even if I know the product I am intending to buy quite well, so I’m less interested in the product details, a site with well-maintained product data is going to make me feel this is a company that cares about the products and the customers.

“Finally, the web is a very competitive environment and customers will judge sites against their experiences with competitors. Product data is another way to stand out from the crowd and the better the experience provided to customers the more likely they are to come back.

Steve Bilton, sales director at FusionPLUS Data, adds: “The new/next generation of online buyer simply expects great online data because they’ve

grown up buying from the likes of Amazon and Domino’s Pizza! Whether the online consumer is a business buyer looking for something outside of the ‘normal order’ or a surfer trawling through the reseller’s store, if they can’t find what they’re looking for within three or four mouse clicks, the reseller is unlikely to win that business.

“Putting to one side the suppliers who pay for the pleasure of being in the top slots, search engines work on a scoring system – the more relevant and informative the data is, the more likely the source of that data will appear in the first page or two.”

“If buyers can’t find what they’re looking for within three or four mouse clicks, the reseller is unlikely to win that business”

A visual business Danielle Attard, head of marketing at Comgem, points out that data isn’t just about the wording – images and video also fall into the category. She says: “Buying online is very visual so giving customers good imagery and relevant product information together is important to help them with the purchasing process. For example if I buy a desk, in a bricks and mortar shop I can see the size and I can feel what materials it is made off. Online I don’t have these cues.

I may have an image, which is a great start but I’m relying on the product description to show me the dimensions and build a picture of how the desk is made – and if I’m lucky product reviews.

“Getting the right combination of descriptive text, images and multimedia content can help sell products and make them stand out from the competition.

Simple things such as a product zoom, a 360 degree explorer or video can help customers see whether the product is right for them.”

Effective usage Of course, great data is only effective if it’s used correctly. Bilton points out: “Firstly, resellers need to get great product data into their systems. Internal staff need correct and up-to-date information on hand to answer queries posed by those customers who still call in. Remember, the paper catalogue is out of date within weeks of its production and many resellers are still taking most of their orders over the phone. When it comes to webstores, online users need to be able to find what they’re looking for within seconds, or there’s a danger they’ll go elsewhere. Put simply, resellers should be in a position to take an order for everything the consumer throws at them, whether they call, or shop online. Great data simply improves the odds but it has to be used effectively.”

Many resellers can access data from the likes of FusionPLUS via their dealer group. Steve Keen, purchasing & IT director, Advantia Business Solutions, says: “Advantia members use data for contracts,

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INDUSTRY

THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA

quotations and tenders but the really switched on resellers use our data as a constant source of ideas and content for their marketing programmes. Members use our product data to create sales presentations, to link product promotions to national and seasonal events.

They use our data to populate e-shots and create their own flyers and newsletters. They use manufacturers’ videos to feature “hero” products on their websites and in social media. Our members have product sales text, images and all the features and benefits information at their fingertips 24/7. The pace of business is now too fast for members to be requesting information and images from Advantia head office. Instead our product data file empowers them to be fast and responsive to their customer’s needs.”

Link selling One of the main benefits of great data is the ability to increase link selling and therefore average order value.

Keen explains: “Our data includes a wide-range of link sell items. In some cases up to 16 different additional linked products. This data is available to our members and they simply choose what products they want to link. They have the choice to include as many or as few of the suggested additional link products. Most of our members’ websites use this information to push these additional suggestions to the web browser when a consumer is searching for or viewing a product.

“Our link sells are designed to help the consumer buy everything they need at the time of purchase and to increase the average order value for our members.

From a consumer’s point of view there is nothing worse that ordering a filing cabinet and forgetting to order the suspension files. In a printed catalogue we would have link sells on the page so we have made it possible to recreate this prompt in the all-important online sales environment.”

Data updates When it comes to the usefulness of data, Bilton points out the need to have regularly updated information. “It needs to be updated as often as is practical,” he comments. “Data is changing every single day, be it existing product updates or new product launches, but, there are some systems that have pretty timeconsuming update procedures, which means that monthly updates are more practical.

“The ability to take in updated data on a more regular basis is the Holy Grail for all involved in the supply chain, so it’s something that we all need to work towards improving, especially the manufacturers, wholesalers and us software houses!”

Speaking from a reseller’s perspective, Dear says: “The simple answer is that data needs updating as often as it needs to be. Manufacturers will sometimes change the specifications of their products so in those cases the updates need to be as soon as possible.”

Dear also points out that new products and data

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“From a consumer’s point of view there is nothing worse that ordering a filing cabinet and forgetting to order the suspension files”

can cause something of a headache. “Sometimes new products come along that may require you to think about your product classification system,” he says.

“When Apple launched the iPad we suddenly found ourselves with a product that didn’t fit neatly into our existing classification so we needed to ask ourselves – where do we put these on the site and what attributes are important for a customer when purchasing a tablet?”

When asked if manufacturers need to work harder to ensure their data is up-to-date and provides the richness of information needed, Bilton says: “Yes, yes, yes! The manufacturers need to understand that whilst they are experts in their field, most are relying on others to sell their products for them. For those manufacturers that already spend big money on wonderful marketing data and supporting materials, it can’t just sit on their marketing website, it needs to get out to those at the coal face. In the main, they do have somewhere to put it, are desperate to use it and it can do nothing other that increase sales!”

Future data usage Data and its usage continues to evolve rapidly, so what can resellers expect to see and do with their information over the coming months and years? Dear says: “An interesting development is the one where sites allow customers to post questions online.

However detailed your descriptions, and its always a difficult balance writing content for the web as it has traditionally been an area where users have notoriously short attention spans, customers will always raise questions about aspects of the product that you weren’t expecting. The questions not only help that individual customer but also enrich your content – and in addition to that give you real insight into what your customers are really interested in. In a similar way to the point I’ve made about customers feeling slightly removed from the products in an online environment, it’s easy to forget that it works the other way too – as an online data manager I miss that direct feedback from customers. So I think a more interactive, dynamic product data experience will be the way forward with the content being updated in direct response to the customers.”

Following on from Dear’s comments, Attard concludes by suggesting resellers need to play their part in the data revolution too. “Manufacturers play a role in ensuring data is accurate and detailed.

However, from an SEO perspective, resellers need to take more of a proactive role – by making their web content unique. This can be done in a variety of ways whether it’s through products reviews, blogs or encouraging user-generated content. By providing more quality content they are less likely to compete on price – as they are giving web visitors something else in addition to the information they’d expect before they buy.” DS

INDUSTRY

QUESTION TIME Office Club

A PLAINSPOKEN VIEW

OF THE INDUSTRY Mark Austen, MD of Office Club, shares his forthright thoughts on the industry, reseller growth, new areas of sales and the future of dealer groups. Austin Clark asks the questions

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QUESTION TIME Office Club

So, how’s business?

Ha! Start with the easy ones, Austin! Variable is the answer. Certainly, every reseller in our industry has had some challenges this year, not least because of the wholesaler issues. But, fingers tightly crossed, generally speaking at the moment, I would have to say okay!

We have a very few members who, bluntly, are struggling; we can identify the reasons why with them, work with them, support them and try really hard to engage them but, ultimately, they have to make it work for themselves. We have a substantial number of members experiencing a period of exceptional growth in their sales and profitability for a number of reasons, typically because they’re either really buying into what we offer and/or because they’re executing really well, but the majority are quietly getting on with it and doing fine – if they’re seeing growth of 2-3% I’d say that’s doing well in today’s climate.

What are the resellers enjoying growth doing differently from those that aren’t?

There’s not one straight answer to that. Certainly, overall, the biggest growth factor is with those resellers, typically retailers, who have really engaged with eBay and Amazon. Online sales are growing exponentially and our members, or at least some of them, are really seeing the benefit of that. However, transferring that business to their own websites and developing follow-on sales is proving the biggest challenge of all.

That said, some of our B2B members are really executing well and are enjoying significant, profitable growth as a result. You know, there’s a lot of flannel talked in our industry about ways to go to market but it remains a fact that the very best way of getting B2B sales is getting in front of customers and exposing yourself to the danger of taking an order.

There are now so many ways of interacting with clients and prospects – e-shots, social media and web stores as well as the traditional methods; we encourage our members not to ‘do it all’ but to focus on the elements they both enjoy and get success from, and do that well. Not one of our members has a market share of more than 0.5% so every one of them has 99.5% of the market to go for and we have quite a few doing really well doing just that. Embrace rejection – it’s the prospect’s fault, his loss he can’t see the incredible value you offer – and move on!

You say it’s retailers typically that are doing well online – why is that?

Stock; pure and simple. You have to buy direct from

the very best source and have a truly efficient internal system. As a general rule, you cannot buy from the wholesalers and compete online. Price is totally transparent and delivery essential. If you haven’t got stock bought at the right price available NOW you’re probably not going to be at the races and, although you could show me a few examples of businesses where that’s not the case, Euroffice being one, retailers have the stock, the availability and, crucially, a business model that complements these sales perfectly.

“If you haven’t bought stock at the right price available NOW you’re probably not going to be at the races”

Surely there are many B2B resellers who are doing well online?

Certainly, and we’re increasing the resource we put behind supporting that - Mark Allan, our business development exec, is now focused on helping our members with their online offering in every way - but the question is, ‘How do they acquire the client?’ and the answer is almost always, offline.

Yes, B2B resellers today MUST have a great transactional web site to drive clients at to be efficient, but virtually all the business most resellers do online is from clients acquired offline. Acquiring clients purely online is very expensive and is getting more so; it’s a cost and a risk most resellers simply can’t afford.

How and where do you see the future of independent resellers?

In 30 years’ time there will still be many, many SMEs in the UK economy who will prefer to buy from other SMEs – resellers. What they buy and how they place their orders may evolve, as it has over the last 30 years, but there will still be plenty of opportunity for smart, well-managed resellers to do really well.

You know, I often say that we used to be in the business of office supplies but now we’re in the business of supplying offices. What our members sell, and how they sell it, will continue to evolve (and we need to be at the forefront to support that) but the fundamental core of what our members offer will not change – a value-added, cost-efficient solution to a business’ needs.

So what exactly are you doing to support your members?

Well, in certain respects, more of the same, but evolving that to best meet our members’ needs. Our members have to buy well to sell competitively; not only do we have demonstrably one of the widest and strongest basic purchasing offer of any group today, we also supplement that with programmes that we know other groups have tried and failed to emulate.

For example, our Brand Builders programme, which offers members access to the very best prices

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INDUSTRY

QUESTION TIME Office Club

on branded products, has encouraged over 75% of our members to engage and participate. Similarly our Club Access programme allows members to access suppliers and product promotions not commonly available to the average reseller. Secret Squirrel (and its online sister, Secret Spyder) are simple price comparison charts that our members can easily personalise to show how competitive they are against the big boys.

These allow our members to clearly differentiate themselves and compete. Allied to that is our marketing programme which helps our members sell more, more profitably, through the channels they choose to operate in, be that B2C, B2B, online or whatever; we try and work closely with each member as an individual business. Our attitude must be – the answer is yes, now what do you need from us?

Behind all of that is a raft of ancillary support services such as the usual carrier, merchant services, free legal advice and so on, offers resellers expect as well as online support in a broad sense. We are not an umbrella organisation that says, “do it our way”; we are a support service that says, “we can help you do it your way – better, most cost-efficiently”.

Critically, we can show our members a real ROI on their membership.

How are you driving your members into new growth areas?

I’m not sure our members like being driven. Certainly, there are some areas which our more proactive members have been able to successfully expand into, whether that’s a specific market, such as education, or product area, such as breakroom supplies; we support these through supplier relationships and specific marketing pieces. There are, however, a number of areas that most resellers will find it difficult to move into anything but slowly.

MPS, for example, will always be a challenge because of the differing sales techniques needed to succeed in that market. Similarly, JanSan is difficult to really get into in a big way because of the investment required to be able to compete. I recently spoke with a buying group in that sector who told me of one of their members, a typical one, whose sales of £8m per annum were supported by their own warehouse containing £2m of stock at cost. Few of our B2B resellers have a business model that would allow them that kind of capital investment and a stock turn of £3m, but they have to buy big to be able to get the prices to compete.

Depot, Lyreco, et al are desperately trying to build in that sector but with questionable success, even at the top end of clients, and in the States I understand that analysts are questioning whether Staples, of all people, have taken their eye off the office supplies ball by focusing too much effort and resource on these new areas to the detriment of their core offering. Without wishing to sound too much of a Luddite, our members

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continue to focus on what they’re good at – and so should we.

“We encourage our members not to ‘do it all’ but to focus on the elements they both enjoy and get success from”

How is the manufacturing sector performing as far as you are concerned?

Like the curate’s egg – good in parts. We are seeing fantastic growth with those suppliers who really engage with us and our members, suppliers like Pilot and Exaclair, with whom we are seeing serious double digit percentage growth from an already substantial base point.

There are, unfortunately, others – we refer to them as the brand assassins – who just don’t get the independent sector. Just because you only have seven accounts in the USA and service everyone else through intermediaries doesn’t mean that’ll work in Europe – and it clearly doesn’t.

The real irritant is those few distributors who won’t work with dealer groups so that they can rip resellers off with smoke and mirrors pricing - charging those resellers who don’t negotiate fiercely much more than others, irrespective of volume – and the resellers who buy from them even though they know they’re getting ripped off. Fortunately, it’s only a small part of the market, but resellers need to understand that groups have to leverage their volume and that means saying “no” to unsupportive suppliers.

And the wholesalers?

Well – I suspect somewhere in the vaults of K House is a small plaque that’s says ‘Agent Mission (almost) Accomplished’. Our industry needs more than one

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INDUSTRY

QUESTION TIME Office Club

strong, well-managed broad range wholesaler and we’re all suffering from Spicers’ travails. Whether the independent reseller’s situation will improve now that both wholesalers are inextricably linked to sales organisations committed to their downfall... don’t know, but hope it will.

Let’s at least hope that there’s not another wholesaler balls-up. That said, resellers will evolve their businesses and continue to succeed whatever happens, and dealer groups will continue to support that.

If there are two strong wholesalers, why do we need dealer groups?

Both wholesalers focus the most resource on the 10% of clients who generate 50% plus of their business through their partner programmes, and even then half of the participants in the partner programmes still choose to remain within a dealer group. This means that 80% of resellers have no partner programme to support them so they need one provided by the dealer groups for support and differentiation as well as aggregated purchasing power, intellectual input, and so on.

Never underestimate the power of peer group networking as an essential component of a thriving business. I could go on about so many of the things we do successfully – our Conference being a key element, one of the few, I suspect, where suppliers walk away with genuinely more business – but I’ll save the advertorial for those resellers who contact us and are interested in genuinely engaging with a group that can help them sell more, more profitably.

Are there too many dealer groups? Will there be consolidation in the dealer group sector as there has been in every other part of our industry?

Dealer group mergers have only happened in the past when at least one of the partners has been irrevocably weakened by not-so-smart management. I see the future as involving more co-operation, as we do with NEMO and Integra through BPGI, rather than mergers and also co-operation with groups in other, closely related sectors.

But as there are fewer and fewer resellers, surely there will be fewer dealer groups?

I don’t think there are fewer and fewer resellers. There are just as many businesses supplying businesses as there were yesterday, they just don’t call themselves stationers, necessarily, or mainline on paper and envelopes any more.

Successful resellers in our market have almost always had some kind of hybrid aspect to their business models; first it was printers and stationers combining manufacturing (print) with distribution (stationery), then it was retail and commercial, with shops operating a B2B business effectively from their back door. Retailers then ran with a hybrid of

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“There are, unfortunately, others – we refer to them as the brand assassins – who just don’t get the independent sector”

stationery and art and craft, and now retail and online, whereas the successful B2B resellers have broadened both their product ranges and the sectors they sell into.

As certain product sectors decline, so others rise and can take their place. We might not sell the iPad today, but we sure as hell sell a lot of accessories to go with it!

What then, finally, are the key challenges facing resellers and dealer groups?

How long have we got? I think the key challenge for every participant in our industry is engagement. How we engage with our members, how they engage with their clients and their peers and how suppliers engage with all of us. It is very tempting, especially for small businesses in difficult times, to retreat into their shells and try and become small islands. I don’t think that works. I am a big believer in collaboration. Be an island by all means, but being part of an archipelago gives you a sense of belonging as well as a collective strength that no individual small business can hope to achieve on its own. DS

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HOT PRODUCTS

2015 THE HOT PRODUCTS

What products are tipped to be big sellers in 2015? Austin Clark finds out

A

s competition for sales hots up, especially in the declining traditional office product area, successful resellers will be looking to diversify their product offering and start selling a number of different items. So what products are tipped to be big in 2015?

Facilities management Facilities management continues to offer resellers growth potential. Debbie Nice, category head, facilities supplies at VOW, comments: “We’ve continued to develop the facilities supplies category and now have a truly comprehensive range of cleaning and hygiene supplies. Our resellers have started to achieve some traction with companies outside the normal office environment, including facilities management services and catering.

“We’ve also expanded the 2Work range to include specialist chemicals such as drain cleaner, oven cleaner and rinse aid. Our growing floorcare range sees the introduction of the brand leading 3M floor pads and the Diversey Carefree and Stride ranges.”

Catering and the café revolution continues to drive

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the requirement for beverage choice in the workplace and Nice says that 2015 will see the introduction of compatible coffee machine pods from Cafédirect, San Pellegrino soft drinks and Liptons Iced Tea. “With one in four households now buying fruit and herbal tea and looking for alternative drinks, we have introduced two new ranges of tea – Pukka and PG Tips,” she says.

“What’s more, the PG Tips range is being backed by a major advertising campaign on TV. “We’re also really pleased to have a new relationship with Haribo and now have a range of sweets to spice up meetings in the boardroom, or to be used as incentives and giveaways by dealers and their customers. Our snacks range is also developing with the introduction of Pot Noodles to the range for quick and easy breaks in the workplace.

“New categories for us include Proctor and Gamble personal care (Always & Oral B) aimed at new markets but also targeted at wellness in the workplace.

Healthcare products are also starting to enter our range now as our customer base continues to diversify.

This year we have added clinical waste sacks and Clinell wipes.”

Nice continues: “Our direct delivered virtual

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range continues to grow with features in our facilities supplies catalogue for HSM balers and Numatic floorcare machines.

“Finally, the 3M Command product listing has been widened and we now have a comprehensive range that will be backed up next year by increased advertising spend.”

Technology The technology sector is predicted to build once again in 2015, with more growth expected around the continuing move to more mobile workforces.

Mark Robinson, market business developer at Canon UK and Ireland, comments: “It’s becoming increasingly important for small businesses to incorporate the right mobile technology to maximise office productivity, and we expect this to be a key area of growth for resellers in 2015. Recent research conducted by Canon in conjunction with B2B International revealed that only 16% of people working in small businesses that use mobile phones every day at work are using them to send documents to print. Similarly, only 37% of daily tablet users are printing from these devices.

“The study further identified mobile printing as a currently untapped opportunity to surge productivity for SMBs. Half of those not currently printing from their connected devices (49%) have either never considered it, never set it up or just don’t know how, but there’s an increasing desire to do so – 22% stated that they’re interested in printing from tablets and mobiles in the future.

“For resellers, this presents a huge opportunity to support the increasing number of remote, home or mobile workers in the UK, and sell more printers and MFDs that support a host of connectivity features, like our recently launched range of MAXIFY business inkjet printers and i-SENSYS laser printers.

We expect products supporting flexible working practices and small or home office spaces to be the big sellers in 2015.”

Nigel Morris, marketing director at Beta Distribution, also cites the new Canon business inkjet printers as key products for 2015, along with data storage items. “In 2015 there will be ever-increasing demand for products to store data – more users wanting to store more data locally. Data storage products will have more space in our warehouse. In 2015 we expect them to account for 30% plus of our business. If the office product reseller grasps the opportunity offered by data storage products then it may grow even more.

“In addition, interactive technology will really start to take off in corporate environments – touch screens are destined to become the standard product in meeting rooms and training rooms. We’ve seen the revolution in classrooms with interactive whiteboards – a similar phenomenon will take place in business.

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“Research says that 13 million wearable devices will be integrated into corporate wellness plans over the next five years”

“None of our product areas are particularly in decline – the only exception being digital cameras which is to do with the shift in technology rather than anything to do with what we have done.”

Gilly Blackburn, category head, technology at VOW, adds that 3D printing will continue to develop.

She comments: “3D printing is the largest development in VOW’s technology category and I think it will continue to present a substantial opportunity to resellers looking to tackle changing consumption challenges and meet end-user requirements for more personalised experiences.

“Wearable technology will also start to creep into the office environment. Research says that 13 million wearable devices will be integrated into corporate wellness plans over the next five years. These fitness devices, which can track employees’ movement, heart rates, sleep and eating habits, encourage people to make a change in lifestyle, share results with colleagues and can lead to less sick days, lower health insurance premiums and higher productivity.

“In the print world it’s still about cutting the cost of printing. In home use that’s through innovative programmes such as HP instant ink and in business it’s through MPS solutions or everlasting ink, for example Epson EcoTank printers. Our recently launched MPS programme is proving very popular with resellers looking for an accessible way to move into the

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“For resellers, this presents a huge opportunity to support the increasing number of remote, home or mobile workers in the UK”

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MPS market and increase their revenue streams.”

Blackburn says that more warehouse space is being given to technology products for education, including interactive products, tablets and projection equipment.

“Tech in education is a growth channel, with educational establishments looking at technology as a long term investment in comparison to traditional office products. “The government is also focusing on tech, having recently added 3D print and software coding to the curriculum. This means that 3D printers are expected to become standard in schools and children as young as five will be learning to code.”

Office products While the traditional office product sector might be in decline, there are still some growth areas to look out for.

As discussed in the November issue of Dealer Support, pen sales are proving resilient, especially when it comes to feature-laden rollerballs and coloured ink.

Kevin Wharton, marketing manager of ExaClair also expects to see increased demand for mobile office, filing and presentation products. “A product line that we have seen grow in popularity and we’re sure will continue to in 2015 is the Exactive range of mobile office, filing and presentation products,” he says.

“Products range from business card holders and luggage to lightweight, practical and highly durable presentation folders, display cases and filing products.

“The range is aimed at executives on the move, and we have found that with the improving economy these types of business people – account managers and sales managers specifically, have more money to spend on creating a co-ordinated and professional look for themselves. Products like these enable users to carry their note pads, business cards and project documents in the same carrier, and appeal to these mobile workers who are happy to spend a little more to have convenience, all-round functionality, aesthetics and durability combined.”

Rexel meanwhile says that bright colours will be in demand. Its new, vividly-coloured JOY range of desk accessories and filing products should fit the bill as end-users look to make their desks fun places to be, and functional too. The company points out that products like these stand out on a page when sending out flyers or informational material, while dealers with a retail offering have a product range that stands out on a shelf. The company is launching the product in the new year with promotions running from 1 January through VOW, Spicers and the BPGI dealer groups.

The world of work is clearly evolving and those changes are having a big impact on the items resellers need to be selling. With the economy slowly but surely recovering, if resellers grab the opportunities the new products mentioned above offer, 2015 should be a strong year. DS

INDUSTRY

EVENT PREVIEW

PAPERWORLD

2015 The preview

Industry attention will soon turn to Frankfurt and the global gathering that is Paperworld which in 2015 takes place from 31 January to 3 February. Austin Clark reveals what visitors can hope to see at the event

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EVENT PREVIEW

H

aving chosen the slogan ‘Always Different’ for the 2015 edition of Paperworld, organisers are hoping to deliver an exhibition that provides something new and interesting for visitors.

With a strong focus on providing the launch pad for new office products exhibitor stands from the likes of AF International, Whitefurze, Jalema and Durable all promise to deliver exciting new offers. Other big names worth a visit include Double A, Sigel, Hamelin, Clairefontaine, Tombow, Casio and Trodat, to name just a few. Plus, for those looking for something completely different, there are numerous new exhibitors from the Far East and Europe.

According to the organisers, Paperworld 2015 will bring together suppliers of paper, office supplies and stationery from across the world. “Paperworld aims to throw light on the recent advancements in this sector and will bring market leaders and small and innovative companies under one roof; it will serve as a great promotional and marketing platform,” a spokesperson said. “Featuring several special shows, award ceremonies and presentations, this event will provide inspiration to all professionals related to this business sector.

“There’s always something different to discover.

With the unique diversity of products from major brand manufacturers, international newcomers and many others, Paperworld is the most important industry forum, source of ideas and order platform for the wholesale and retail sectors as well as for corporate buyers.”

More from Germany One of the key new additions to the show next year will be a separate hall for members of two German manufacturing associations. Messe Frankfurt announced at a press conference earlier this year that it had reached an agreement with PBS Industrieverband and Altenaer Kreis – two German trade associations – for their combined 60 members to exhibit in a separate hall. The move has come as a result of the organisers looking to attract more German exhibitors after something of an exodus over the last couple of years.

Horst-Werner Maier-Hunke, chairman of PBS Industrieverband and Durable, stated at the conference that the decision to host the German-only hall on a biennial basis had been made due to the fact that, “the product innovation cycle means it is only really worth exhibiting at Paperworld every other year.

What you’ll find where Hall 3.0 Office equipment, presentation aids, organisational aids, paper, writing pads, writing paper, envelopes, computer accessories, supplies, transparencies and labels, calendars, organisers, leather NEW: Now in Hall 6.0 Printer supplies and accessories, Remanexpo, remanufacturing industry, OEM supplies, writing and drawing equipment

“With the unique diversity of products from major brand manufacturers, international newcomers and many others, Paperworld is the most important industry forum”

Hall 4.0 (Pressure) pencils, felt pens, fountain pens, highlighters, pens, Linieal, drawing template, Paperworld stationery, school supplies Hall 4.0 (Gift) wrapping, napkins, designs for gift-wrapping paper/napkins, exclusive stationery products Hall 4.2 Writing instruments, drawing materials, notebooks, notepads, folders, school bags, cases Hall 5.1 Greeting cards, picture calendars, albums, stationery sets, diaries, stuffed animals, trend articles, licenses, games, books, packaging Hall 6.1 Paper, leather, accessories, briefcases, suitcases, luggage shop, small leather goods, Asian high quality selection Hall 10.0 Asian PBS products and national presentations Paperworld Navigator App To make life easier for visitors to the exhibition organisers have created the Paperworld Navigator App. The app makes it easy to find specific stands or certain products using the exhibitor and product search, either alphabetically or by means of the full-text search facility, and locate their position in the hall directly in the Hall Plan.

The Paperworld app is available for Apple and Android devices.

Plaza Academy From 2015, the Paperworld Forum has a new name and will be called Paperworld Plaza Academy.

www.dealersupport.co.uk DECEMBER 2014

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INDUSTRY

EVENT PREVIEW

The location has also changed and the Plaza has moved to Hall 3.1, Stand C60. Oriented primarily towards the retail trade, the new venue for lectures and awards ceremonies will follow a different theme each day. This year’s line-up of speakers looks set to deliver a wide-ranging selection of expert presentations.

Green Office Day – Tuesday 3 February 2015 On the final day of Paperworld, which has been nominated Green Office Day, the paper, office supplies and stationery forum will focus on the environment and subjects such as resource-friendly processing and recycling. Additionally, the Green Office experts will explain how offices can be furnished in a sustainable and ecologically-friendly way. A full programme of presentations is scheduled to take place; there’s more information available on the Paperworld website.

Trend show Which colours, materials and product ideas will be hot in 2015 and beyond? The design studio bora.herke. palmisano has looked at current developments in design, fashion, architecture and art on behalf of Paperworld and adapted them specifically for products in the areas of paper, office supplies and stationery for the Trend Show. Visit the Paperworld Trend Show in Hall 6.1 C90 to find out more.

Getting there Paperworld takes place at the Frankfurt trade fair site, which can be accessed by international air, road and rail links. Handy flight schedules into the city mean that it is possible to visit Paperworld in one long day, although there are plenty of hotels to choose from in the area.

Admission tickets (excluding complimentary ones obtained from exhibitors) include free travel on local public transport services operated by the regional RhineMain transport authority, which makes buying tickets in advance worthwhile.

“The app makes it easy to find specific stands or certain products using the exhibitor and product search, either alphabetically or by means of the full-text search facility”

Some Paperworld facts and figures - 1,677 exhibitors from 59 countries - 42,145 buyers and trade visitors from 144 nations - Over 1,600 attendees to Paperworld last year were from the UK - One-day tickets cost EUR 20.00 when purchased in advance or EUR 26.00 on the door

Opening hours 2015 31 January to 2 February: 9am to 6pm 3 February: 9am to 5pm

Top tips - Before arrival make a list of the exhibitors that you would like to see and consider making appointments - Get your hotel booked as early as possible as rooms can sell out - Wear comfy shoes – this event covers a vast area - Ask any exhibitors that you work with for a complimentary ticket

Why should dealers attend Paperworld?

- The latest products and innovation on display in one place

More information Paperworld takes place from 31 January to 3 February 2015. Plenty of information, including exhibitor lists, details of what’s happening where and when and how to purchase tickets can be found on the fair’s website at www.paperworld.messefrankfurt.com DS

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

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INDUSTRY

CONFERENCE REVIEW Integra

THRIVING THROUGH CHANGING TIMES Focusing on an ever-changing business environment and new opportunities for growth, Integra Office Solutions’ Changing Times National Conference was enjoyed by all, as Austin Clark reports

I

ntegra Office Solutions played host to over 270 delegates and 70 suppliers at its Changing Times National Conference last month.

The conference, which took place at the East Midlands Conference Centre, was opened

by Integra’s MD, Aidan McDonough, who shared his views on the ever changing industry and the impact this is having on businesses now and for the future. Details of Integra’s strategy and support for members in 2015 were also outlined.

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Keynote sessions Delegates came together to engage and discuss the changing business environment and enjoyed a series of keynote sessions, which focused on developing strategies for growth.

Sean Starkey, MD of Durable UK and chairman of the BOSS Federation, spoke about the need to embrace new opportunities, work smarter and harder, think outside the box and be open to new concepts, new ideas and new ways of working. The underlying theme

CONFERENCE REVIEW Integra

of his presentation was that everyone in the room should find ways to adapt and innovate for change, adding: “Let’s start to run faster than the competition”.

His key takeaway advice included “make time for new opportunities and new products” and “adjust your service and your marketing to reach the all-important Millennium babies”.

Nigel Morris, marketing director at Beta Distribution was next on stage and he opened by saying: “If you keep doing what you usually do, you will get the same results.” He then explained that whilst previously Beta’s business comprised 75% EOS, the business has dramatically changed and today it is technology solutions that generate the most revenue.

Morris stated that the biggest driver for change is data, referencing the fact that in 2007 the amount of digital data exceeded the amount of storage. Every business has a requirement to store data, creating a massive opportunity for dealers to secure customer relationships for the future. He urged dealers to create new sales opportunities by researching their customers, addressing their needs and finding a supplier who can help them sell more products.

Caspar Berry joined the line-up of guest speakers and gave an inspiring talk on making important business decisions and achieving a competitive edge within an organisation.

During his 30-minute session, Caspar kept the audience captivated, recounting some of his experiences playing poker in Las Vegas and drawing a number of comparisons between playing cards and running a business. He spoke about uncertainty, its causes, effects, what we do about it and what we should do, adding that information is the key to certainty and that luck is the impact of that which we don’t know and can’t control.

Berry provided plenty of food for thought and his approach offered a fresh take on the way that organisations make decisions and communicate to achieve a competitive edge. Speaking about the need to break patterns and change behaviour, he said: “We should embrace the future, even if it’s scary; and that it is only because tomorrow is uncertain, that today has any meaning for us at all.”

Business sessions In the business sessions Michelle Naphtali from P1 Training talked about managing margins, something she says is the most important thing outside of new business. Whilst on the surface the secret to better margins seems simple – either put prices up or buy better – in reality it’s much more complex and in this session, it was explained how dealers can get the balance right.

“Margin can be managed up by 100 different ways,” she said, adding that simply creating a

“We should embrace the future, even if it’s scary; and that it is only because tomorrow is uncertain, that today has any meaning for us at all”

structure for margin and review isn’t enough. “It should be clear company-wide and everyone in the business needs to have a joined-up approach for it to fully work.”

Sales development consultant, Parin Sachedina, talked about planning for growth in her session. The interactive workshop prompted dealers to focus on where revenue and/or growth have come from in the last year and to identify the strengths and risks in their businesses.

During the session, Sachedina outlined seven areas for growth that included new business, improved margins, cutting costs and new products/services; as well as a number of actions to stimulate growth such as vision, people, sales and marketing.

In conclusion she reaffirmed the fact that it all starts with the right attitude, something she says must start at the top. Her mantra is to ACT – Action Changes Things – and she encouraged members to continue to build their growth strategy, create clarity of purpose and take action every day.

A full day of activities Over 70 suppliers exhibited at the Changing Times Supplier Exhibition, where many exciting promotions, prize draws and special offers were available to Integra members.

Over 220 delegates enjoyed the gala dinner and the prestigious 2014 Initiative Awards presentation.

Two bottles of champagne went to VOW for Best Dressed Stand, with Product of the Show, voted for by members, going to Brother for its TP-M5000N TapeCreator Pro. The Manufacturer of the Year prize went to Fellowes while Antalis was named Distributor of the Year.

Integra Member Awards went to: Alliance Member of the Year – Pentland Format Aspire Member of the Year – Art & Office COG Member of the Year – Winsley Court Directory Member of the Year – Frasers Gold Member of the Year – Premier Office Supplies.

The evening entertainment came from Evolve, a team of former gymnasts and sports acrobats who put on a great show of shadow artistry. Members were also amazed by the sleight of hand of a professional magician and the caricatures skillfully drawn on an iPad by artist, Luisa, which were later sent to subjects via email.

McDonough commented: “We are very grateful for the time and support shown to the group by our members and key partners, without which these events would not be possible. We would like to thank everyone for attending and their continued commitment to Integra.” DS

www.dealersupport.co.uk DECEMBER 2014

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PEOPLE

DEALER PROFILE The Human Office

ARE YOU SITTING

COMFORTABLY? The Human Office has found an interesting niche in the world of ergonomic products for the workplace. Austin Clark caught up with Les Creen, director of the Gatesheadbased business, to find out more

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

DEALER PROFILE The Human Office

I

n a super-competitive marketplace, dealers are constantly being told to ‘find a niche’, ‘do something different’, ‘stand out from the crowd’ and ‘prepare for future changes by looking at new products’. One dealer that has successfully taken those points on board and is thriving accordingly is Gateshead-based The Human Office, which combines the sale of traditional office products with furniture and, interestingly, workplace ergonomic products and services.

The Human Office began trading in May 1990 when founder Les Creen took his 15 years of industry experience into his own business. “I decided to give it a go on my own and, as the business progressed, other partners were brought on board to help with the growth across different areas,” explains Creen. “They are now directors following our incorporation in 2005.”

There’s less competition on the ergonomic side which tends to be more about service and customer care

Ergonomic solutions A breakthrough, and the decision that marks the Human Office out as different to most other dealers, came in 1996, when Creen decided to dedicate a separate ergonomics division to work with occupational health advisors to promote wellbeing within the office environment. “From the time I started the business I always had a leaning towards health and safety,” he explains. From“The previous business I worked at, from the early 1980s when I first became involved with computer consumables, I recognised that computers were becoming more prevalent in offices, rather than just in dedicated computer departments. This led to various health problems and I noticed that the more people used computers, the more health problems were occurring.”

Initially, most problems and concerns stemmed from screen glare, static and radiation fears, which meant the likes of screen filters were in demand. Over time Creen noticed that the incidence of musculoskeletal problems resulted from sitting at desks for long hours, due to poor spinal posture, static sitting or repetitive tasks. This opened up further sales opportunities where dynamic ergonomics could be applied as a method of solving these problems.

Creen explains: “There was certainly enough demand by 1990 as more people began to suffer illness and discomfort and

while it wasn’t all down to computer usage it certainly brought ergonomics to the fore, along with the introduction of the VDU health and safety law in 1993. As far as the minimum specifications of the law went, it was extremely lacking.

“Fast forward to today and the minimum legal requirements in terms of what workstation equipment should be and should do still falls short of what is required to ensure good health and productivity.

Every day we see people who have complied with the VDU health and safety law for years, who still have, in some cases, very severe health problems. The problem still exists that within organisations those responsible for overseeing the facilities and procurement will see a chair as a chair and ask how they can get the best price. OK, they may look to see if it meets a certain British Standard, but that’s often as far as it goes. However, occupational health specialists will think more about the specification of equipment and the ergonomic benefits, so I spend a lot of my time working with those people.

“Not too many companies will be prepared to spend on higher-value equipment with good ergonomic specification. I do see it as an investment but the UK market lags behind the Scandinavian countries in particular when it comes to investing in preventative measures. In our experience, however, the companies that make the investment rarely return to using cheaper or lowerspecification equipment.”

When asked why he thinks that’s the case, Creen answers: “There are multiple reasons. Dealers like ourselves have to take an element of the blame, as do the British manufacturers, particularly seating manufacturers. They tend to stick with what’s safe and predominantly sell on price or aesthetic design rather than ergonomic design – ‘form before function’. There are some decent British manufacturers of ergonomic seating but they tend to offer it as an add-on to their standard range of chairs. Therefore, most of what we sell tends to come from abroad to serve a reactive market, whereas in Scandinavia the chairs we sell as ergonomic solutions are standard items as organisations are much more willing to invest in staff welfare. There is recognition of the increase in productivity and efficiency.”

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PEOPLE

DEALER PROFILE The Human Office

Key products When it comes to key products, Creen says he spends most of his time working on seating, with items such as height-adjustable desks and ergonomic desk accessories also part of the dealer’s product offering. “Seating is, after all, the closest thing to the body of the user,” he says.

“When selling the correct chair, three elements come into play, namely fit, which is the easiest to understand but the least important of the three, posture and movement. If you can provide a chair that fits the user and provides healthy posture for all work tasks they perform, you have a winner.

That’s why, when selling a chair, we need to discuss the job functions of each individual person in detail. That’s why I tend to start with movement and work back towards fit.”

When asked if this means Creen and the team at the Human Office spend a lot of time carrying out workplace assessments, he says yes.

“Assessing the users’ needs is an integral part of what we do. Most of our work is reactive, working with people who have already got a back/ musculoskeletal problem. There are many occupational health organisations out there that carry out chargeable assessments, ranging from a tick box list through to a comprehensive Occupational Health Assessment. We tend not to do chargeable assessments because if we were to advertise this service we’d be biting the hand that feeds us to some degree. We receive a lot of referrals from occupational health specialists whose businesses are based around the assessments. We do, however, make sure that when we supply equipment we not only comply with the assessment provided but train users on how to correctly use the equipment. Building and maintaining relationships with the occupational health specialists isn’t too difficult, as long as you continue to find solutions to the problems highlighted by them.”

Margins Many of the new product areas dealers are encouraged to move into have greater margins that traditional office products. Is that the case for ergonomic products?

“It’s becoming more competitive as the market grows, which means margins have shown a slight decrease, especially as online trading is increasing,” says Creen. “However, most customers recognise that a high level of service is vital in providing the best health solutions, and a healthy margin is required to ensure this. There’s often a high

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Most customers recognise that a high level of service is vital in providing the best health solutions and a healthy margin is required to ensure this

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PEOPLE

DEALER PROFILE The Human Office

level of time and investment you have to put into providing the solution, but this is normally recognised and appreciated in a way that gets us future referrals. We tend to steer around the price battle by going the extra mile by, for example, offering all of products on approval and offering as much training as is required to ensure the health benefits are felt. You couldn’t get that from a discount online seller.”

CV TURNOVER: £1.7M GROSS MARGIN: 34% NUMBER OF STAFF: 14 DEALER GROUP: SUPERSTAT

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Three business divisions As well as the ergonomic side, The Human Office also operates a buoyant stationery and office supplies division and a general furniture project side that includes an element of design work, often involving third-party architects and project designers. This area involves plenty of project management work. In terms of growth, general furniture is showing the strongest increase.

Creen comments: “It’s unsurprising really. In times of recession organisations will look at the bigger capital expenditure first and then, as business starts to pick up, some of the projects that have been held back are released. We also have two great people selling those items, including our sales director Kevin Baker.”

The Human Office is located in an open plan 8,000 sq ft premises incorporating a spacious showroom displaying office furniture, ergonomic seating and desking at Metro Riverside Park, just off the A1 in Gateshead. “This provides us with great communication links with our customer base across the north of England,” says Creen. “Most of our business is done in the north east of England, from Northumberland to Teesside. However, we do have some national accounts on the furniture and ergonomics side. It helps that we have a showroom.

We have three or four general furniture appointments and maybe 10 to 15 on the ergonomic side every week and people do respond to being able to see products and try them out in person. We have 20 to 25 ergonomic chair solutions on display with over 100 possible options, helping us to find a solution to meet every need.

“In terms of competition we have lots of competitors in the region on the supplies side but less so with the furniture projects. Most smaller dealers will get their furniture from Spicers or VOW whereas we buy directly from manufacturers. That means we can supply specialist items that our competitors often can’t.

Then there’s less competition once again on the ergonomic side, which tends to be more about service and customer care.”

On the office supplies side, the Human Office has recently recruited former Spicers Account

DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

Every day we see people who have complied with the VDU health and safety law for years, who still have health problems Manager, Craig Armstrong, to grow the division.

“We had to reorganise things to make it proactive from a sales point of view. We’ve started to see some really good results in the last month or two but it has been hard work. We’ve also moved from XPD across to Superstat, which has taken time to adjust to, but it seems to be working well.”

The Human Office will next year be celebrating 25 years of trading – due in no small part to focussing on different workplace needs.

When asked where he thinks the business will go in the next few years, Creen answers: “We’ll continue to look after existing and future customers in the way that has brought us success up to now. Our challenge is to ensure we offer all our customers best value and service across all three of our product divisions, using the vast experience of our team to maximise these efforts.

Succeed in this and we’ll continue to grow.” DS

Musculoskeletal disorders leap by a fifth, according to latest HSE data While the UK remains one of the safest places to work in Europe, work related ill health continues to rise for British employees according to the latest data from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The HSE claims that there were some 28 million days lost over the last year, costing the economy over £14bn. While the most dangerous professions continue to be construction, agriculture and manufacturing, the report found that over two thirds of days lost (20 million) and some £9bn can be attributed to a number of well-defined causes rooted in the modern workplace; musculoskeletal disorders, stress, anxiety and depression. The HSE study claims that around 80% of new work-related illnesses were attributable to these conditions.

Of the 535,000 new illnesses reported in 2013/14, 184,000 were musculoskeletal disorders and 244,000 were related to stress and depression. There are now over half a million (526,000) people with self-reported cases of musculoskeletal disorders in the UK, up by 20%.

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PEOPLE

60 SECONDS WITH...

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n o c e S 60

y r t s i an M

Kir

Kiran Mistry, MD of COLOP UK, talks stamps, technology and the need for office products companies to be fleet of foot

In no more than 50 words, what does your job involve?

To ensure the smooth running of COLOP UK and to help my team achieve and manage the sales growth, customer service levels and financial goals we target ourselves with.

What’s the best day’s work you’ve ever done?

Three years ago, we set up a new division overnight to fill the gap of a company liquidated that afternoon and today it delivers 40% of our sales revenue and has added a new string to our bow.

What is the best office product/service ever invented?

I love gadgets, anything that makes my life easy and richer – the invention of the self-inking stamp, there by avoiding the need for a separate ink pad and messy ink, I will argue is the best office product ever.

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

How do you think office supplies/ services resellers need to adapt over the coming year?

The traditional office products supply chain is in the process of collapsing. Speed of delivery/quality of service and the ability to be ‘fleet of foot’ are features that you need to take on board with this change. I still strongly believe people buy from people – the personal touch needs to be an inherent part of your company’s offering alongside e-commerce nirvana.

What’s new in the world of stamps?

Personalisation is key for today’s consumers and our NEW COLOP Printer 7 was designed with the individual’s needs in mind. It’s compact, highly engineered, easy to use and, most importantly, it provides clear impressions with its see-though window. The extra-large index window can be used for corporate advertisements,

branding and also, a picture frame for those family/holiday pictures. Particularly relevant as many stamps spend their time sitting on the users desk. This product will be the new street brand.

How can resellers sell more stamps/ stamping products?

It is often not appreciated the range of marking options that stamps provide and the different markets they serve. By engaging with COLOP UK, we can show you the sales opportunities for loyalty stamps costing a few pounds through to top end electronic stamps which retail at £1500. We have monthly and quarterly promotions that serve to inform, educate and excite the end-user.

What office technology/ies do you think will have the biggest impact on the way businesses work going forward?

Mobile platforms and cloud technology. DS

MANAGEMENT

GROW YOUR BUSINESS

ANOTHER

DIMENSION

Injecting a little fun and potentially some serious profits into the world of OP sales is 3D printing.

George Carey looks at how dealers can build on this opportunity

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GROW YOUR BUSINESS

I

was rather shocked to learn recently that 3D printing isn’t even a little bit new. The first additive manufacturing – as it’s also known – technology was created in the early ‘80s. Over the course of the intervening years, different printing methods and technologies have emerged and, of most significance to dealers, prices have come down consistently. While some rather charmless folks have used 3D printing to produce guns and put the instructions all over the internet, it’s a technology that’s generally viewed with a great deal of positivity and has been applied to a host of far more useful purposes than the manufacture of firearms. As the market for these products grows, the devices are increasingly finding a place in the SOHO and consumer markets, building on their success in industrial settings.

Indeed, technological Nostradamus Gartner believes that more than two million 3D printers will be sold in 2018 with total spending hitting $13.4bn in the same year. The technology research specialist predicts that consumer 3D printing will grow 10-fold, to sales of 850,000 by 2018, but nonetheless the majority of spending will still be on industrial systems, where huge 3D printers are used for prototyping and manufacturing in aerospace, automotive and healthcare sectors. Whether selling to consumers, offices or industry, it’s clear that these devices offer significant sales opportunities to dealers.

One man with an intimate knowledge of 3D printing is Ashley Camm, 3D print specialist at Midwich, who is very excited at the mass market appeal these devices are starting to display. So, for the lay person, what machines are available? “There are several different technologies,” explains Camm. “There’s the jetted plastic [the most widely available machines] and then the powdered plastic which uses a binder and can then be coloured using inkjet materials. Then there’s selective sintering, which fires high-energy zenon lamps or lasers onto material that hardens those, right up to the very high-end, which is direct metal laser sintering. That takes powdered titanium or steel and fuses the particles together with a high-powered laser and produces solid metal objects, which is incredibly useful for oil rigs, for example, and people who need very bespoke parts produced very quickly. The top-end machines go from £250,000 up to £750,000.”

And that’s when he dropped the bombshell: “That technology’s been around nearly 30 years.” So why haven’t we heard much about it until more recently? “It has been used in very high-end technical applications for that whole time,” he says. “It’s now becoming more affordable for smaller businesses to enter that market, so we’re starting to see bracket manufacturing companies making their own hardware, dental companies producing moulds for braces, medical companies doing cutting guides and parts for in-body use, to name but a few. There’s quite a lot of that happening now in a range of sectors.”

While the industrial products are reducing in price all the time, they are still prohibitively expensive for many enterprises, which has brought about the emergence of specialist bureau services that are popping up around the world to cater for these companies’ needs. It’s in the lower-end products that there seems to be the most movement as Camm observes: “The market’s moving fast but where things are going really well is into education as the desktop machines are now at a price point of a maximum of about £3,500 to as low as £1,000, so they’ve all of a sudden come into a bracket that most schools can now

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MANAGEMENT

GROW YOUR BUSINESS

justifiably afford. We’re seeing an awful lot of uptake from them, right up to universities and colleges who are starting to look at the mid to high-end machines that can print the very stable ceramic type models.”

Another person keeping a keen eye on the development of this technology is Gary Downey, group marketing director at Balreed. “We have a very strong production side to the business so we have a lot of clients who are commercial printers, copy shops, central reprographic departments, people like that, and those guys who have a specialist sales and service operation. That’s the area where we would develop their 3D printing deals in terms of account management and servicers. For those people there’s a commercial benefit for them having that service in-house,” he comments. “There’s a little bit of interest from office clients – and I would include schools and universities in there, as well as commercial clients,” adds Downey.

Camm, a passionate proponent of the possibilities 3D printing offers, sees a whole host of opportunities for dealers looking to capitalise. He explains: “What we’ve found is that when a large dealer has picked up on 3D print and really pushed it, it has been going into the manufacturing industry as well as education. An office dealer that we speak to has sold a couple of large 3D printers into a furniture company that has actually taken that on board as a marketing tool rather than for design. They’re printing small versions of their new products, boxing them up and sending them to people to say ‘what do you think?’ So they’re using it in really innovative ways to show the marketing side of it rather than develop new products as we would have thought.” And this is where he sees some dealers cashing in: “Those art supplies guys, because they’re going around a lot and have a lot of contact time with purchasers and people in these businesses, they’re in a really good place to take these around to commercial enterprises.”

There is a note of caution for those that have invested heavily in switching to a managed model of service in recent years, as Downey points out: “The challenge for us is that other than providing the product and the financing for them to afford to buy it, there are limited opportunities as the provider to be able to contract the consumable. It’s a little bit like wide format printing in that there’s no proven way of metering and controlling the consumables used to be able to contract a user. You can’t really control what it is that’s going in, you can’t chip it, so you can’t contract it the way you can in an intelligent cartridge.” He warns: “As a supplier, consumables are a big part of the offering you give to an end-user and if you rule that out, it’s essentially just a box shifting game.”

Despite this slight chink in the armour of an exciting new sales opportunity for dealers, it seems likely that manufacturers will start to get their heads around the metering issue as they are starting to do with wide format printing. If that can be resolved, it could mark the start of a whole new sector of business for dealers looking to diversify.

This is one for the future perhaps, but not a future that lies too far away. “Within the next year or so I think it will grow,” predicts Camm. “The machines at consumer level are still around £1,000 so quite expensive but I would hope that by next Christmas we will start to see some models that will be £500 or less and that will be the point that it will really

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The market’s moving fast but where things are going really well is into education as the desktop machines are now at a price point of a maximum of about £3,500 to as low as £1,000 start to take off.”

And it’s not just the prices that look set to change: “We’re also starting to see some exciting new filaments, going from the bright primary colours to filaments made of bamboo, wood, brick limestone and bronze. There are also flexible filaments that you can use to print yourself a pair of trainers now,” Camm enthuses. “The consumer market’s ready to explode and I think it will do that when we see a sub-£500 machine that can use what are at the moment exotic filaments but in time will become commonplace.” So keep an eye on this rapidly evolving technology, it could add another dimension to your turnover. DS

MANAGEMENT

MPS

BETTER TOGETHER Is managed print easier to sell if you work closely with a vendor? What are the benefits of taking a partnership approach? AUSTIN CLARK discusses the merits of working with a manufacturer partner

A

s the managed print services (MPS) market becomes increasingly competitive and the scope of what’s involved within an MPS contract broadens, it takes plenty of effort and knowledge to sell an MPS package. Throw into the mix rapidly developing technology that seems to change monthly and it’s easy to see why resellers often decide to work closely with a manufacturer.

Keith Howell, dealer business generation director, Ricoh, says: “By adopting a manufacturer-led MPS there are a number of reseller benefits: it

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removes duplication, takes out complexity, improves ease of adoption, means there’s a single point of contact, simplified support and a consistent customer experience from both end-user and IT perspectives.”

Howell suggests that the real benefits come when a relationship between reseller and manufacturer is seen as a two-way partnership. He comments: “Initially MPS was the preserve of manufacturers selling into the corporate marketplace. Now that most SME customers are seriously looking into MPS, it is a great time for resellers to learn from the experiences of the manufacturers.

Likewise, as a manufacturer we cannot be complacent. Ricoh listens to its resellers and adapts its offering to match their needs. Ensuring resellers

Olivetti’s Range steps up to a new Level

When Olivetti launched its range of colour and mono MFPs and desktop printers this year, the aim was to guarantee all-round improvement thoughout the entire range of 35 new products that will be launched by the end of 2014.

It’s a tall order to bring so many new products to market but the variety and choice Olivetti, can now offer its customers, arguably differentiates the company from other manufacturers.

Increased productivity Across the range Olivetti’s new products offer outstanding speed and performance with exceptional finishing, longlasting consumables, large intuitive touch screen colour operator panels and standard duplexing.

Olivetti’s d-Color MF3300 33ppm A4 Colour MFP ideal for managing in-house print

Scanning for standard applications As well as offering extensive scanning capabilities to email, FTP, SMB and WebDAV and scanning directly to the hard disk and USB, most of these devices can scan in many different formats such as JPEG, TIFF, PDF, Compact PDF, PPTX (PowerPoint), XPS and Compact XPS.

Improved security Most of these new devices offer state-of-the-art security. The hard disks can be overwritten and data can be encrypted which provides added protection against improper use.

Network security is also guaranteed by utilising the latest IPsec, IP filtering and IPP over SSL protocols and client authentication solutions.

Direct printing capabilities Nearly all the models offer users the opportunity to print directly from USB stick, some support AirPrintTM and some support PDF, XPS, TIFF, JPEG and OOXML (Office Open XML including docx / xlsx / pptx) file formats, via a Web Browser Utility, so that all bases are covered.

Impressive energy efficiency The entire range offers outstanding energy savings with very low TEC (Typical Energy Consumption) levels, low fusing temperatures, many newly designed power save modes; all ensuring compliance with the latest European Directives.

Flexible media handling The extensive Olivetti portfolio offers some of the largest paper capacities on the market with a range of optional additional cassettes and supports high media weights and large formats such as SRA3 and Banner (1.2m in length) size.

To find out more about the range please call: Abi Stafford on 01908 547980 Email: a.stafford@olivetti.com

www.olivettiuk.com

MANAGEMENT

MPS

develop an effective and profitable MPS offering is very much a two-way partnership.”

That belief is echoed by Dave Thompson, head of the OA channel at Samsung, who comments: “By working together the end-user gets the best of both worlds – the support and knowledge of a manufacturer alongside the local management of the reseller. Traditionally resellers have been better at providing bespoke service and account management packages, but have been unable to win the larger contracts usually as they are competing with their own manufacturer.

Samsung does not sell direct to the end-user and will always work with a partner.

“By working together the reseller and manufacturer show a united front to the client and the client gets the comfort that the reseller has the full support and backing of the global entity. From a reseller perspective, working closely with the manufacturer ensures that they can draw upon a larger knowledge pool of expertise, which will help overcome any technical or business objectives that may be in the client’s mind. Also, if the reseller/manufacturer relationship is strong, then a joint engagement very early in the process makes the arguments even more compelling as the client has seen the strength of the relationship throughout the process.”

The support on offer

When looking for support from a manufacturer, what sorts of things should resellers look out for? Rob Attyrde, head of marketing at KYOCERA document solutions UK, comments: “When working on MPS resellers should look for a partner who can provide them with innovative technologies and high levels of support. At KYOCERA we have dedicated teams of account managers and field engineers who help our partners to continue to deliver the right solutions for their customers.

We’re also evolving our product range – for instance our in-house team of developers create and tailor our HyPAS apps and software as required by our partners’ customers to make sure the solution really fits the bill.

Thompson adds: “At Samsung we offer all of the usual manufacturer support from an account management and service perspective. We also offer the partner the opportunity to work with our direct engagement team. This team engages in certain verticals within the FTSE top 500 promoting the whole Samsung portfolio of B2B product (not just print) and can offer insight and expertise to help the partner win print opportunities by leveraging existing Samsung relationships.

We also have our specialist MPS team who will work with a partner on their larger opportunities, helping with professional tender responses, knowledge and expertise around the larger propositions.”

Mark Webb, UTAX (UK) regional sales manager for the south, adds: “At UTAX we refer to resellers as ‘partners’.

The word underpins our entire corporate ethos and our commitment to working together in support of our UK partnership network. As part of our ‘Reinvestment for Growth’ programme we have increased our personnel levels by over 35% across the whole company to deliver this support and to continue the development of the skill sets used by our professional and technical services teams and our sales and marketing support. This brings numerous benefits. For example, with many more of our partners offering highly–tailored MPS, much of which can be quite complicated, two and even three heads can definitely be better than one! Plus, our team of area sales managers can help by offering our partners advice on the tendering process whilst, simultaneously, our professional services team can be looking at software solutions and our regional sales managers will then work to provide a suitable financial solution and a contract that meets the partner’s and their client’s requirements.”

On the engineering side, Webb points to some pretty impressive numbers. “Our response team, who handle

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

By working together the reseller and manufacturer show a united front to the client and the client gets the comfort that the reseller has the full support and backing of the global entity

MANAGEMENT

MPS

initial client calls and fix 15% of all issues immediately over the telephone. They also resolve 81% of all call outs within the first visit and they are working hard to achieve 95%.

“All of our products and devices are supported by our expert team of software technicians and engineers to ensure that installations and software updates are professionally integrated with new and existing networks. Our direct service technicians provide many different levels of technical support across our dealer network. They are responsible for meeting and exceeding every aspect of client expectation from pre-delivery inspection to network connection and relevant hardware training. Our dedicated installation team will also remove the customer’s old equipment, if required, together with unwanted consumables.”

Three key areas

Howell suggests that when choosing an MPS partner three key areas need to be looked at: people, process and technology.

“People are the most valuable asset and Ricoh have comprehensive pre-sales, implementation and post-sales dealer support both in terms of size of resource and level of expertise.”

Attyrde agrees, adding: “When selecting a partner, in addition to all the obvious things like product range, support levels and SLAs, you should always consider the culture of the organisation – are they nice people to do business with?

We’ve found that is a very good place to start.”

Back to process and Howell explains that resellers can leverage Ricoh’s five-step adaptive model to help organisations optimise document-centric processes. On the tech side, broad product portfolios allow resellers to maximise opportunities.

Alison Locke, marketing communications manager at Olivetti UK, adds that a broad range of hardware can bring added flexibility to a reseller’s relationships with end-users and between resellers and manufacturer. “Working with a manufacturer that offers a substantial range of hardware can help resellers to be self-sufficient if they want and many resellers enjoy this flexibility. Therefore it’s important to look beyond the hardware and software offerings. What we offer our resellers is intensive training on how to use third-party software, with our hardware, and how to maintain it.”

Choose wisely

We understand the relationship between resellers and their customers is one of trust and in many cases has taken years to develop

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

With the partnership approach making sense for many resellers, are there any potential drawbacks resellers should look out for when selecting a partner?

Thompson concludes by answering: “Resellers should always be cautious of a manufacturer who has a direct sales presence as they will usually end up in competition.”

Webb agrees and adds: “We understand the relationship between resellers and their customers is one of trust and in many cases has taken years to develop and it’s therefore vital that resellers do their homework before choosing a vendor partner. One of the reasons UTAX has so many long-term partners and has a growing network is that our only focus is to look after our partners and to support them with a professional, technical team who understand their needs and those of their customers.”

Focusing on the MPS offering, Howell says: “In selecting a manufacturer, resellers should look for a full MPS offering that is clearly defined and backed with all the relevant resource and expertise. A fully managed service should be premised on continuous optimisation across contract life to demonstrate value through productivity improvements and ongoing savings. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that MPS is the supply of MFPs and printers under one finance agreement with click contract. There will be significant evolution of MPS driven by changes to the workplace such as cloud and mobility. Ricoh has a clear long term vision of managed document services to address this and guide our resellers through this journey.” DS

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MANAGEMENT

CUTTING COSTS

Stripping out cost Simon Drakeford, CEO and founder of Office Power, discusses the need for dealers to strip costs out of their business and looks at ways to efficiently achieve real long-term savings

A

lot has been written over the past year or two about the structural changes in our industry. These structural changes have been necessary due to a flat market, sell price deflation, a disrupted supply chain and increased competition. The last two quarters have seen some of the most significant mergers and acquisitions in our sector for a long time and it’s unlikely to stop any time soon. One thing is clear, with all this change, only the strongest businesses will survive.

So how does a business in this industry become one of the strong ones? Business leaders are frequently asked what is more important, sales or profit. There are many anecdotes, proverbs, rhymes and some reason that are often used to address that question. But the real answer is, ‘it depends’.

And what it depends on is strategy, lifecycle, shareholders, the market and a hundred other variables. But there is one occasion when the answer is a little clearer. When times are tough like they are now, profit, more often than not, edges it.

There are many ways to boost profit, cost cutting being one of the easiest but also often the most difficult to swallow.

Do you need to cut costs?

So how do you know if you need to cut costs? Firstly, look at some macro issues. Is GDP or consumption challenged?

Is there an increase in the cost of raw materials? Is the supply chain robust? Is the competition getting more and more aggressive? Is the market changing shape? Then consider some micro issues. Is the revenue line concentrated on a small number of customers? Is there long term decline in either revenue or gross margin? Do changes in market dynamics render parts of your business model obsolete?

If you answer yes to some of the above, then you would probably be wise to consider efficiency measures.

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

How to cut costs?

Different businesses cut costs in different ways. Quite often large corporates will adopt a generic slash: 10% across all functions. The assumption here is that there is enough ‘fat’ in the organisation to be able to absorb such an exercise. In my experience of corporates this is often the case, however, the arbitrary standard figure is not always the best way of routing out the inefficiencies.

Using a consultant or a financial head to review the profit and loss can be another method. Each cost line should be reviewed with the owner and a mini-business case or justification can be prepared for each expenditure line. Keep an eye out for travel costs and entertainment but don’t touch the stationery line! This is time consuming and, in smaller businesses, not that appropriate as the principal is the owner of the whole profit and loss.

Headcount or staff costs are often one of the most significant shares of expenditure. In mid to large size organisations managers can be asked to provide a bulleted breakdown of what each function or member of staff does.

This audit can be then used to assess overlap and organisational structure reviews can highlight duplicity, which are often characteristics of empires built by ambitious managers during times of plenty. This can provide significant savings but people efficiencies can be disruptive, emotional and in some cases, counterproductive. Consideration should also be given to the costs of restructuring, particularly for elder or longer serving employees.

Similarly, a process audit can be conducted. Review what processes may exist because ‘they always have’ and where the cost benefit may not have been reassessed for a while. You may be surprised how many activities have minimal impact on the top and bottom line.

You might also want to try adopting a competitive approach with your staff. It can be surprising how good incentivised line

CUTTING COSTS

management suddenly become at finding efficiencies.

And don’t forget your suppliers. In difficult markets the struggling is rarely limited. Big engines require feeding and volume is critical as demand stutters. It’s always worth pushing for more but don’t wake sleeping dogs if you feel you are on a good deal cut in happier times.

Tech will win So, it is definitely possible to make your company stronger by having a keener eye on costs and it may be possible to grow and improve your profit by just doing things the same way but more efficiently. However, this may be short term flattery. Personally, I believe the best way to cut costs in your business with minimal disruption is to embrace technology. Whether it be the macro or micro issues referred to earlier, it is incredible how almost all dynamics in modern day businesses or economies are being driven by the technical revolution.

The pace of change is introducing new business models, channels, processes and ways of working almost overnight. In the original dotcom boom at the turn of the century, risky investors and entrepreneurs tore up thousands of years of commercial rules and models assuming that technology would re-write them. They were wrong, the fundamentals of commerce remain the same.

However, what technology does do is find different and mostly more efficient ways of enabling them. This has huge implications on the structure of commerce and, therefore, the structure of your business. Whether it be efficiencies in the supply change, price arbitration, new emerging channels or enhanced customer insight, businesses all over the world are leveraging technology to drive growth and profit and making their businesses stronger.

There is no doubt that to evolve to meet the changing needs of customers at the same time as driving efficiencies

The pace of change is introducing new business models, channels, processes and ways of working almost overnight

through your business a focus on costs is of paramount importance. However, if this is done without a longer-term view on how you enable your business through technology then I believe any gains will be short lived. One thing technology doesn’t do is regress and, as such, it has to be embraced. It certainly shouldn’t be considered lightly. I’ve seen many businesses adopting the wrong technical solution and/or investing heavily in fads. It’s important to be aware of ‘false technology’ – these are system frameworks masquerading as advanced technical solutions that they are not. Instead, quite often they are a complicated mesh of off the shelf products that hook you in and make it difficult to leave. They have high levels of obsolescence and poor integration which can cause significant issues further down the line.

Also, be cautious of paying high levels of upfront capital investment to enable future costs savings. It’s really important that these efficiencies do materialise. I’ve seen many a business case melt post implementation leaving CIO’s embarrassed and principals looking at scary cost lines with minimal benefit.

At Office Power, the Euroffice Group’s latest business, I’ve seen challenged businesses transformed by replacing expensive, labour intensive processes with purpose built technology that requires no upfront investment. Not only do these efficiencies drop to the bottom whilst enhancing the customer experience but they also free up the business principal to focus on key strategic matters such as customer development and growth. That is proper efficiency on both counts. One thing I am sure of, it is the leaner businesses who will be the stronger businesses and those stronger businesses will not only survive, they will be winners in the future. And leaner doesn’t have to mean doing less. With the right solution it can just mean doing the same, just smarter. DS

www.dealersupport.co.uk DECEMBER 2014

51

MANAGEMENT

DICTATION

Stop typing.

Start talking.

Grow your business.

Maxine Park, director and co-founder of UK digital dictation and transcription services provider DictateNow, reveals why now is the time to stop typing and start talking

F

or most businesses, a simple question defines their current situation: how do you improve efficiency and productivity at the lowest cost in order to generate an increase in profitability, without necessarily increasing revenues?

With many organisations slow to recruit after the recession, despite the continuing signs of a sustained recovery, many employees find themselves trying to do more in less time and often with fewer resources. Many employees continue to have myriad roles within their organisations, with time-consuming secretarial tasks, like typing, often taking precedence over their own work.

Choosing to put the more mundane business processes in the hands of external providers on a pay-as-you-go basis will help improve efficiency, provide greater flexibility and boost

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

productivity, without the need to recruit.

Adopting an outsourcing or co-sourcing approach also frees up time for executives who would be much better deployed undertaking the meaningful, profitable tasks they were employed for, rather than trying to do too much, in too little time.

Stop typing and start talking It is apparent that the majority of businesses do not consider time taken to type up work to be wasted, but the fact is this time could be used more constructively and more productively. The majority of organisations still allow their most valuable assets – employees – to waste a large part of their working day typing responses, reports, presentations, documents, letters, and emails. It makes no economic sense.

Across the country you have an army of executives employed for their ability to sell, solve problems, create

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MANAGEMENT

DICTATION

solutions, explain, present, negotiate and care for customers but what do they spend most of their time doing instead? Typing.

It has become something of a prerequisite that in order to succeed in business one of your core skills must be the ability to type, with an equally comprehensive understanding of the most popular word processing, design, presentation, accounting and database programmes. But typing is just a function. If you are employed to do a job because your key strengths and capabilities are business acumen, sales technique, commercial awareness and creative thinking, what does it matter if you can type? What they really mean is you must be able to type quickly.

Most people think they type quicker than they actually do. On average, in composition typing, an untrained individual can type around 15 words a minute. Now contrast this with the same individual being able to dictate their thoughts at around 100 words per minute. You do the maths, three hours to type up a 3,000 word report or 30 minutes to dictate it?

And what about time wasted correcting mistakes or formatting the finished document? Deploying skilled, valuable resources to revisit routine tasks over and over when they could be using their knowledge, training, skills and enterprise to develop and grow the business, is surely just wasting time, effort and money.

One of the main advantages of digital dictation is that users don’t have the added pressure of getting it right at the first time of asking. They can return to the recording at any point they want, to record over passages, insert new comments or instructions.

Then, once they are happy with their dictation and completed the recording, users can decide – depending on how urgent or otherwise the document is – a timeline for when it needs to be written up. Marking it high priority or low priority and providing a deadline for its return ensures the finished document is being managed effectively and efficiently. And with options to add formatting, pronunciation and spelling instructions alongside the submitted recording, the finished transcription should require no (or very little) amendment.

If a business has the necessary additional resources, such

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

You do the maths, three hours to type up a 3,000 word report or 30 minutes to dictate it dictation can be routed internally. However, if resources are limited or working at capacity, and the decision is taken not to over-task or distract executives in their daily duties, then transcription service providers have the solutions.

Service providers employ hundreds of experienced secretaries, most working from home, but all UK-based, which precludes many of the perceived problems of communicating with a co-sourcing team. These secretaries can be granted remote access to the business’s systems to undertake typing and other secretarial services directly into client documents, databases and presentations that never have to leave the firm’s own secure servers.

Services now on offer extend beyond traditional transcription and copy typing, to include file opening, data input, document production along with work in the usual Microsoft Office programmes, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and others.

More convenient digital technology has long superseded traditional tape recorders, which makes dictation available to everyone, anywhere, with secure dictation applications for Smartphones, iPad, iTouch and BlackBerry.

Digital dictation and transcription services usually charge by the minute and charges are based on the length of the dictation. There are no contracts and the service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis to deliver improved efficiency for your business - and that means greater profit.

Digital dictation software integrates easily with any IT system and allows instant access to an experienced typist, well-versed in the art of transcription, with work generally returned faster than when internal finite resources are utilised. Lawyers have known the benefits of talking more and typing less and perhaps the wider business community needs to take note.

For dealers, it could even be another sales opportunity. DS

May 2012 Issue 203

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USP

SALES ACADEMY

TIME TO FLEX YOUR MUSCLES With British business emerging out of the recession how can you improve your prices and profitability? Sales expert and author Chris Merrington shares his thoughts ne of my clients, like many businesses, found the recession very tough. They dropped their prices, took on low quality clients and over-serviced clients at unprofitable price levels. They found themselves having transactional ‘buyer-supplier’ relationships based on ‘doing’ rather than ‘peer-to-peer’ relationships based on being trusted advisers delivering massive value through their expertise. How should they now increase their prices? How should they tackle dysfunctional client relationships? How should they tackle scope creep and overservicing, which can cost a fortune?

Every week I work with clients helping them improve their

O

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DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

profitability, increase confidence to increase their prices and be more successful. The techniques and strategies I demonstrate in my workshops work the majority of the time.

“The power balance is shifting away from the buyer to the seller”.

These are not my words, they are the words of the Procurement Directors’ trade magazine. Many businesses have been experiencing growth and increased optimism over the past 12 months. However, some are also recognising that they have made decisions during the recession that they now need to change or resolve. So how should we take brave decisions? What steps should we take to ensure we are in a better shape to ride the upturn over the next 12 months?

SALES ACADEMY

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU

DEVELOP YOUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Hoping things will improve is not a solution. Hope is not a strategy. You have to take responsibility for improving your pricing and profitability.

There is no tooth fairy or Father Christmas. It’s down to YOU.

How will your business develop over the next three to five years? How can you ‘future proof’ your business? How will your market change, customers change, competitors change? How does your business need to change? How will you balance growth in turnover versus growth in profit? Too many businesses fail to update as technology and their market changes. Don’t be caught out by a changing marketplace like Yellow Pages, HMV, Blockbuster and Comet.

REVIEW YOUR PRICING If you haven’t increased your prices for several years this may be the time to have a price increase. Price is the number one factor to improve profitability. If you don’t get your price right you will be on the back-foot. I appreciate it is not as simple as just increasing your price. In my workshops we practice how to have grown-up conversations with clients about price.

Rehearse your conversations. Do it when you are feeling confident, such as just after winning some new business.

REVIEW YOUR CLIENT BASE Who are your most profitable and potentially most profitable clients? Who are the least profitable? How can you improve the situation or replace them with more profitable business? Develop a strategy for each. Work out the cost to your business of unprofitable clients; this should motivate you to resolve the unprofitable ones.

REVIEW YOUR CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS Who are with senior decision makers and who are with juniors? Which relationships need to be improved? The best client relationships are with senior decision makers who have authority, budget approval and can see the bigger business picture. Don’t tolerate clients who treat you poorly; I believe you get the clients you deserve.

NOW PUT YOURSELF IN YOUR CUSTOMER OR CLIENT’S SHOES What are they thinking? How will they view you and your price increase? If they have been getting their own way beating down suppliers’ prices they may want to continue with more of the same! Will they let you get back to pre-recession prices? Unlikely. It’s so much easier to come down in price than to go up in price. Expect some resistance.

Seize the opportunities of the upturn. Take a serious look at your business and decide how best to take back some of the power.

“ THE BEST CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS

ARE WITH SENIOR DECISION MAKERS WHO CAN SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE ”

REVIEW YOUR PEOPLE Who are your stars? I predict that during the next 12 months there will be a war for talent. As optimism and confidence returns to business, so recruitment has picked up. Think hard how you will retain your stars.

Simply throwing money at them will not be the answer. Understand their aspirations and ambitions. Show how they will have a great future with you. Identify your less productive people. How can they be more effective?

Manage them better or manage them out.

REVIEW YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Are they best in class? Do they need an upgrade? Are they looking tired? How well differentiated are they? How are your best competitors developing their products and services? How can you be ahead of the market? If your products and services look like your competitors’ then they will be commoditised and bought predominantly on price. Are you delivering real value for your clients, which makes a real impact on their business? Become mission critical to your clients.

Chris Merrington is the author of “Why do smart people make such stupid mistakes?” - A practical negotiation guide to more profitable client relationships. Chris regularly consults and runs workshops for senior management and sales-teams in the areas of Negotiation, Trusted Adviser Selling and Winning New Business. He can be contacted at chris@spring8020.co.uk

www.dealersupport.co.uk DECEMBER 2014

57

C U LT U R E

T I E LIV

The best way to spend your free time and money

FI LM

Q UO T E O F T H E MONTH Out 19 December

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb sees Larry (Ben Stiller) travel to the British Museum to restore the magic that brings his museum exhibit friends to life. The powers of the Tablet of Akhmenrah are beginning to die out, which prompts Larry to embark on a globe-spanning quest to restore them, uniting old and new characters including Theodore Roosevelt (Robin Williams in his final performance), Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Lancelot (Dan Stevens). This ideal pre-Christmas film also stars Sir Ben Kingsley as the villain.

MUSIC TAKE THAT The three remaining members of Take That, Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen have announced their new studio album, which is wryly called III. This is the first time Take That have written and recorded as a three and with that new dynamic has come a new sound; “These Days”, the album’s lead single, is described as “something unlike anything the boys have ever written before”, featuring “Chic-style funk guitar riffs and Pet Shop Boys style vocal effects.” An album set for the top of the charts.

PU B QU IZ Q1: Christopher Cockerill invented what in 1955?

Q2: How many years did the Hundred Years War last?

Q3: What is the capital city of Australia?

Q4: Who is the only British Prime Minister to

be assassinated?

Q5: The first section of railway track in Britain ran

between which two places?

DECEMBER 2014 www.dealersupport.co.uk

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ” Oscar Wilde

Out now

GOOD

Puppy love After a farmer lost his beloved sheepdog, he decided to remember his loyal companion by spending £2, 000 on a dog makeover for the family car. Dave Isaacs and his family, on losing Floss the sheepdog, decided to make a car-sized replica out of a Peugeot Estate car. Mr Isaacs, who lives on a farm near Battle in East Sussex, said: “I know it was a bit of a mad thing to do.”

Web of intrigue Arachnophobes should not apply for a job at Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant – where part of the building is blanketed by a four-acre spider web. Experts estimate there are more than 107 million eightlegged friends living there. “Far greater in magnitude than any previously recorded aggregation of orb-weavers, the visual impact of the spectacle was nothing less than astonishing,” said experts.

BAD

A1. Hovercraft A2. 115 Years (1337-1453) A3. Canberra A4. Spencer Percival A5. Stockton to Darlington

58 A

FINAL WORD

Andrew Harman

A 59

Further education leads the way with MPS PRINTER FLEETS TO GET RID OF “ RATIONALISING EXCESS DEVICES CAN HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON OVERALL POWER CONSUMPTION ”

ANDREW HARMAN, MD of Annodata, tells us why further education is benefitting from a progressive approach to print t Annodata we’ve found that higher education is leading the way when it comes to print with research suggesting that 80% of the sector will have rolled out a managed print service (MPS) by the end of 2015.

Annodata conducted a survey of 100 IT directors at HE&FE, a higher and further education exhibition in London, about their print and document management practices and priorities for the next 12 months. The results revealed that over half (58%) already have an MPS in place while 57% of those who do not currently use an MPS expect to do so within the next 12 months. When asked about their print priorities for the coming year 41% cited reducing their environmental impact followed by improving reliability (28%); reducing costs came in a distant third, identified by just 14% of respondents.

It’s clear that higher and further education institutions are taking a progressive approach to their print practices – but not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. As with all sectors, costs and reliability are key drivers for the sector, but it’s rare to see the environment come out

A

as priority number one. These institutions are actively trying cut down their paper consumption – and in some cases go paperfree entirely – but we know from experience that they’ll need help to do it.

Reducing paper consumption, or going paper-free entirely, could take years and requires a big culture shift. However, there are simple things that organisations can do with a managed print service to cut down on their paper usage and lower their overall carbon footprint.

For example, print management software, such as Equitrac, can help to ensure that only those pages that are actually needed make it off the printer, while rationalising printer fleets to get rid of excess devices can have a big impact on overall power consumption.

Annodata has a long history of working with the education sector and we are fully aware of the need to limit waste, improve service reliability and drive down costs.

This sector is putting print first and saving resources by outsourcing their print management to a single provider and I’m confident that it’s only a matter of time before other industries catch up.

www.dealersupport.co.uk DECEMBER 2014

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