Big Interview

When Jeanette Bresitz joined Office Friendly a year ago, she quickly addressed some simple necessities for the UK group’s dealer members. Throwing off the shackles of a restricted core offering was just one of them BROADENING horizons

With 25 years of industry experience under her belt – in a variety of reseller and wholesaler environments – Jeanette Bresitz joined the UK dealer group fraternity in June 2021 when she became Managing Director of Office Friendly. Founded in 1994, Office Friendly was born out of wholesale operator Kingfield, with long-standing and close ties to what eventually became the EVO Group of Companies and VOW Wholesale within that entity.

One of many – although slowly depleting and/ or consolidating – dealer groups in the UK, Office Friendly has continuously evolved and moved with the times, with all of its previous leaders putting their unique stamp on the cooperative.

Bresitz is no different. Coming on board when the country was still in the midst of battling the coronavirus pandemic, she urged dealers to learn all they can about product adjacencies and then diversify with a consultative approach. All the while managing inflationary pressures and maintaining profitability in a challenging macroeconomic environment. Easy? No. Doable? Very.

OPI’s Heike Dieckmann caught up with Bresitz for a glimpse at the current workings of Office Friendly and the UK business supplies space at large.

Jeanette Bresitz: Sure. As you say, I’ve been around this industry for some time, actually all of my professional career since I left education. I started at Viking in the late 1990s and then, within that organisation, worked for both Viking and Office Depot for about seven years as part of the category team.

I left to go travelling – one of my big passions in life – and 18 months later joined Spicers where I stayed, in various roles including merchandising and marketing, for 12 years. I was Director of Marketing when Spicers merged with OfficeTeam to become SPOT Group and moved into a sales operations and communications-led position when that happened.

I caught the travel bug again and spent another 12 months travelling before doing some consultancy work. Prior to starting my current role at Office Friendly in June last year, I worked for Staples Solutions as a member of the UK management team for about three years, part of which now falls under the Banner umbrella, of course, one of the components of EVO Group.

OPI: It must have been quite a year, with all the ups and downs COVID still had in store for us. JB: Yes, it’s been a whirlwind, especially coming back into the dealer side of the community in the UK again. I’ve spent the past 12 months trying to develop and focus the team, understanding our membership and fostering supplier relationships.

Coming from what can perhaps be described as the ‘enemy camp’ that was Spicers, it’s the first time in my career I’ve worked alongside VOW, and I’ve spent a lot of time building relationships with the teams there.

JB: It’s probably changed the type of support we give to our membership and also the collaboration between individual members. We’ve seen so much community spirit come into play as businesses – and people individually – have struggled during the pandemic.

There’s been a lot of care and support for each other, irrespective of competitive concerns. And our members have been looking to Office Friendly for guidance and leadership during what have been difficult but also opportunistic times. JB: The membership tally is slightly smaller with about 130 dealers, but their combined sales are in the region of £500 million. Most of our members are UK based, but we do have a couple of Irish dealers as well.

JB: Commercial is our biggest member. As regards anything ‘typical’, it’s hard to say. It’s more about mindset rather than size. We tend to attract a membership of £1 million upwards and many of our solutions are probably a better fit for larger organisations, but they are very diverse companies, all aiming to grow.

That said, some members turn over very little in the core office supplies space because their focus isn’t on our industry; they come from outside our space, but want to be part of an organisation with solutions or connections to help them do more in it.

JB: Yes, we are a member-owned cooperative, with each dealer having an equal vote and share in the business. We’re a not-for-profit organisation, so any monies we generate go back into developing

the group. Annually, based on profitability, we also try to pay a member dividend.

Thanks to Julie Hawley who was in this post before me, Office Friendly is in a good, profitable place right now. Our financial year ends in June, and we’re well on track to hit and exceed the targets set.

JB: Our biggest USP in my mind is the team which has a great relationship with and understanding of our membership. Other than that, there are three key things I would highlight that we heavily invest in and which add value to our members.

The first is Kascaid, our bespoke marketing solution, which has a dedicated marketing team that reports into our Marketing Director Katie Metcalfe-Roberts. They provide a wide range of services, from web development and digital content to branding and traditional print marketing.

The second is our Weaver programme, a social sustainability initiative and accreditation scheme whereby we partner with independent sustainability consultancy Avieco. Our members can participate in this programme and achieve accreditation for their business from a sustainability perspective.

It’s also a long-term initiative inasmuch as businesses need to continually demonstrate a plan of improvement across five key areas of sustainability – accreditation occurs every two years to monitor progress against set targets. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the number of members participating in the Weaver programme grow considerably.

Finally, we have our Pioneer learning and development programme. This is probably the one which will see the most new investment in the short term. In fact, we’ve just recruited a new Learning and Development Officer, James Barras. We spend a lot of time and energy on training within our member organisations to help develop and grow their teams and give them the right skill set to become – or stay – successful.

JB: Certainly not since the withdrawal of the scheme, definitely not. Throughout COVID, we saw a number of members close their doors, but not as many as people had predicted in the early days.

In many cases, it’s the entrepreneurial spirit – so typical of independent operators like our members – that has kicked in. Dealers have found different ways of supporting their existing customers and finding new customers and markets they can sell their goods and services to.

As a consequence, quite a lot of them actually brought some of their team members back from furlough long before it ended, so I don’t think too many were still reliant on it at this point. There has been a certain amount of downsizing too, of course, whereby organisations have looked really hard at the staffing resources they need.

JB: It’s been pretty static over the past 12 months since I’ve been there. We have seen some consolidation with members looking to exit the business. We, as a group, try and help with this from within the membership, as we have some

great dealers that want to continue their growth through acquisition. Occasionally, we also see a member leave and choose either to go to another group or become completely independent.

I never actually answered your earlier question about whether we still need all these different groups. What I’ve just said is probably the answer – all the groups represent and do something very slightly different, not to mention the fact that membership structures, number of dealers, services offered, etc, are quite varied. It depends on what, as a dealer, you’re after and what kind of service you seek from your group. None of us are one-size-fits-all.

JB: There will be, yes, because as the UK dealer market consolidates, the groups will follow – they have to, and hopefully it will be to the benefit of the dealers and the organisations we all trade with.

JB: New working patterns represent great opportunities laced with considerable threats. Different – and more varied – products are needed to cater for the homeworking, mobile and office demographics. But how can dealers deliver cost-effectively to both an office block and a residential address? The answer lies somewhere between what the wholesalers can do and dealers’ own last mile delivery.

The profitability side of the equation clearly needs to change, as you rightly say, as average order values are lower. That said, when people are working from home, for example, they don’t necessarily buy a value product, but instead

something they feel comfortable putting into their own space. So product aesthetics, quality and longevity matter a lot more in this setting.

Logistics are less of an issue, as the UK is pretty well set up with end-user carrier partners used to delivering into this environment. Again, the ‘but’ is that products need to be well priced to allow everybody in the supply chain to be profitable.

The IT side from a consolidated ordering and invoicing point of view and how a dealer can really facilitate and manage it is another factor. It’s not insurmountable, although I can certainly see a bit of leakage whereby customers order more than they have historically done outside of specific contracts which are in place.

Most dealer systems can provide a slick experience online – it’s a must and non-negotiable now. Customers expect to be able to find what they want, know it’s in stock, that it’s going to arrive tomorrow or, if it’s not, when it is going to be there. Fundamentals.

The component we potentially lack in the independent dealer channel right now is the last mile status and the visibility of it. If your order comes from Amazon or is delivered via an operator like Evri (formerly Hermes), you know exactly where your parcel is, when it’s going to arrive, and that Ian or Frank are going to deliver it. That’s the piece we need to work on, because it’s become an expectation today.

JB: There are some great industry systems out there. Whether they can provide a singularly unique experience to an end user, comparable to that of a large organisation, I guess is debatable. However, there are two kinds of consumers we’re talking about here.

The first group are those who just want to go and buy what they know they need online, without ever transacting with an individual. But there are many – the second cohort – who really value that consultative sell and the support of a reseller, whether it be a dealer or a contract stationer.

JB: It’s changing and COVID has probably just accelerated what was inevitable anyhow. Many administrative roles are disappearing. Who still has a purchasing manager? Ordering what you need to ‘run’ a workplace – office or otherwise – isn’t the job anymore, it’s an add-on and a distraction. As such, a dealer’s role is to make this distraction go away as quickly and conveniently as possible.

Part of doing this well is for a sales person to know and understand enough about their customers and their pain points to then be able to give them an experience which takes these pain points away.

JB: In the main, dealers have been really creative in terms of adding value to their customers and identifying where they can sell a product or service into their customer base which may not necessarily come from mainstream wholesale.

COVID has accelerated this mindset of, “What else should we be doing for our customers and how do we do it well?” Because the more they can do well, the closer it keeps that end user customer.

PPE obviously carried many operators in our industry for a while, but there was also a fairly quick realisation that this bubble wasn’t going to last forever and they needed to think beyond it.

Prior to COVID, dealers had already embraced the jan/san and the breakroom side of things. I see many now becoming end-to-end interiors specialists in the wider furniture category as opposed to just supplying desks and chairs. They are providing workwear and embroidery, consultation and fulfilment services. Some have even seen a gap in the market and started to resell into the dealer community.

JB: Exactly. A couple of organisations immediately spring to mind that have created a wholesale niche to their business where they can offer differentiation in terms of brands or products. Again, this is particularly true for the furniture sector. These resellers offer something that currently isn’t available through the normal channels or certainly not in a differentiated form.

JB: We did, but not anymore. We moved into our own premises in September 2021. VOW relocated first because of issues with the building we were both in (Kaye House) and for a short while it housed Office Friendly in the new facility too.

But as a growing organisation, it just wasn’t right for us so I took the decision in the early part of my tenure at Office Friendly to move to a separate building which gives us space to develop and be our own organisation.

So, while VOW continues as our wholesale partner, we’re not intrinsically linked anymore, through a joint building, from an IT perspective or in any other way.

JB: It is. And it goes back 28 years – Office Friendly’s entire existence, so there’s a lot of history between us. Yes, there are challenges, and it wouldn’t be right for us not to challenge VOW on price, service, assortment and all of the things that are really important to our members. But we work together to hopefully become better.

JB: It would depend on the new owners of that VOW organisation and what their plans were to grow and develop their newly acquired business. I guess it would be an opportunity for us to show those new owners the value Office Friendly brings. It would also potentially come with more investment into an organisation which can then bring better things to the dealer community.

It’s not something that keeps me awake at night, to be honest. While our core has always been about having a wholesale partner and a wholesale commitment, our membership has become incredibly diverse in terms of what really drives their organisations and also with regards to what they sell.

Traditional office products constitute a far smaller portion of the basket than ever before, but for some members it still allows them to get their foot in the door. As I said before, that might be the reason why dealers which are very much on the fringes of our industry are joining us.

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JB: It’s gone down quite a bit. If you look at 100% of a dealer’s basket, what might have been 50% four years ago going through VOW is probably 30% today. It’s because they have diversified into other things and other specialisms.

The average cost of a ream of paper or a stapler is very different to that of a bespoke, embroidered t-shirt they might be selling to their end users. It has moved the balance of the split of spend.

JB: I’m saying that the wholesalers – all of them in our sector – cannot diversify as quickly as a dealer can. I know it’s part of VOW’s strategy, but like many large organisations, the speed to market is lacking. Until now, it has developed aligned bolt-on categories rather than a massive swing to something that’s really differentiated and allows dealers to take something completely different to market.

I talked earlier about the entrepreneurial spirit of independents. Their size and that spirit mean they are nimble; they can make a decision to do something today and it can happen tomorrow. This is not possible in a large wholesale organisation. There are processes and systems and all sorts of things which get in the way of doing anything fast.

There’s obviously been a considerable change in the wholesale marketplace over the past three years with the demise of Spicers. It has meant the remaining wholesalers – not just VOW – have had to concentrate on supporting dealers and getting them back to a point of stability which may or may not have held up some of this diversification.

With an organisation on the scale of Spicers out of the picture overnight, the likes of VOW and Exertis had to quickly bring on board customers they weren’t trading with before, ensuring their core range was still right and relevant to what Spicers may have been servicing previously.

It’s all too easy to criticise, not so easy to really fix the problems, I’m fully aware of that.

JB: There will undoubtedly be more consolidation and the core of our industry is getting smaller.

There’s a benefit in scale for businesses; as a result, you see lots of them – not just in the dealer

channel – on the acquisition trail. We’ve seen plenty of it happening in the UK and continental Europe over the past couple of years and it will definitely continue.

JB: Inflation. Irrespective of the channel you are in, it’s probably the biggest challenge today; how you manage some of those inflationary cost changes in your business and still keep yourself in a good, profitable space to develop and grow.

Sustainability is another challenge and I think we have a responsibility as an industry here. How do we get to a position whereby we have a good blend of products that drive sales to the end user, while at the same thinking about what happens to those products some way down the line?

COVID seems almost gone now, but we’re not there yet and the ramifications will be with us for a long time – we talked about changing work patterns earlier. And, of course, the tragic events happening in Russia and Ukraine are putting further pressure on already stretched global supply chains and markets.

These will undoubtedly rumble on for some time, although I sincerely hope that the situation somewhat resolves itself for the poor people of Ukraine soon.

Overall, there’s a broad array of challenges, but there are masses of opportunities too, with people starting to see good business growth again.

JB: We as an organisation have changed and diversified hugely as the needs of our members have evolved. But we will continue to be called Office Friendly for the foreseeable future, and while we are embarking on a complete rebrand as we speak, it won’t involve us changing our name.

JB: Our next conference planned for October this year is the big launch date, but we’ll have a soft launch prior to then – you’ll be the first to know!