Final word: Martin Eames

It is generally accepted that new products are the lifeblood of any industry and yet, among its other problems, the UK office products industry has actually become structurally resistant to them. For example, working against them are: 

• Annual catalogues and range selection processes
• A reluctance to delist tired, traditional products and replace them with new improved versions
• A focus on category management and supplier rationalisation
• Penal product listing costs, rebates and ‘soft money’ programmes
• The service not product orientation of contract stationers and dealers
• Inadequate contact points and ineffective communication channels with end-users.

All these conspire to make the OP market a very difficult and uninviting environment into which to successfully launch new products. With such little encouragement, it is not surprising that there is relatively little genuine innovation from manufacturers and even when opportunities arise to present their products directly to users, few take up the opportunity.

Yet the industry has never needed innovative new products more. A seismic change is the behaviour of office users under the age of 35: they simply do not use paper, which was the core product from which most traditional office products developed. Many products are now very tired and reaching the end of their lifecycle. 

Like most mature industries, OP has more than its fair share of mature people and maybe this is one reason why it seems to be unresponsive to the changing needs of the end-user. If you are over 45 you probably still take handwritten notes and print off hard copies of important documents to file – so what is the problem? Unfortunately, the under 35s, who are underrepresented in the industry but increasingly represented in offices, do not work this way; the ‘paperless office’ has arrived.

The industry needs new, innovative products to stimulate this new breed of office consumer – in fact it has needed them for the last ten years. But to encourage them, the environment must be more attractive and everybody in the supply chain has a responsibility.

• Manufacturers need to take a broader view of the business they are in, recognise their core competencies and use them to develop new products
• Manufacturers should set tough but achievable revenue targets as a percentage of total sales for new products
• Manufacturers should invest in market research to understand the needs of the modern office worker
• Wholesalers, contract dealers and dealer groups should give more recognition to manufacturers with proactive end-user marketing programmes. It is end-user adoption, not trade adoption, that creates brands 
• Wholesalers, contract dealers and dealer groups should make more use of web catalogues to refresh ranges and encourage new products to be launched at any time, not just at the annual hard copy catalogue launch
• Wholesalers and contract dealers should stimulate the development of genuine new products by offering the benefit of lower first year listing costs, and should commit to list them for a minimum of two years
• Dealers of all sizes should proactively promote and sample new products to stimulate their end-user customers to try new added-value alternatives
• Dealers need to diversify into non-traditional growth products such as catering, packaging, janitorial, promotional and managed print services 
• Media owners should explore and deliver new and better communication channels to end-users.

Mature industries cannot really be turned around but they can be sustained for longer by developing a climate of product innovation and continuous improvement. The OP industry needs to take coordinated action now in order for everyone to benefit from the added value that new products will generate. 

Keywords: Supplies4Office, interview, final world, innovative, office products