The art of office products

Once again OPI has brought together a list of the most influential players in the OP industry. The old (and young) masters on display in this year’s Top 100 include new faces in form of Simon Moate at the UK’s office2office, retail mogul Theo Paphitis and Australia’s new independent champion Andrew Boath. Familiar names missing from the roll call in 2008 include Integra’s Rick Needle, who has retired and Frans Koffrie, the former CEO of Corporate Express. We canvassed opinion from all corners of the world and came up with portraits of the executives who hold the power. But don’t just take our word for it, look around the gallery and see for yourself…

 
Angel Alverde Losada heads up Office Depot's Mexican and Central American operation. He's spearheaded the company's expansion in the region since 1996, having taken over just two years after the OP giant started up in the Mexican market in 1994.

In that, time he has helped expand Depot's presence in the region to five countries beyond Mexico: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama.

In 2007 alone, Depot opened 23 new stores, bringing the total number of stores to 161 in Mexico and Central America. Mexico remains Depot's stronghold, with retail coverage in all of the country's 32 states and a total of 65 cities.

According to Alverde Losada, the company's strategic priorities for the region going forward are two-fold - expand to new markets and consolidate its presence in existing locations.

Office Depot Mexico and Central America is part of Depot's International Division which, at the moment, is performing substantially better than its domestic operations.
 

Business-savvy with a keen eye for finding and exploring opportunities where other OP players dare not venture - that just about sums up the impervious Mark Baccash, founder, president and CEO of US-based franchise operation Office 1 Superstore International.

Undoubtedly the intrepid traveller of the OP world, not everywhere Baccash has ventured has brought him instant or even medium-term success. Office 1's operation in China or its small presence in the vast Russian OP market are just two instances where the going has been very tough indeed. But, and this speaks to Baccash's stamina, it's all about perseverance, about re-grouping and starting anew - and China is a prime example of that. Office 1's export operation in China has recently started appointing distributors in the country and the prospects are hopeful. Ultimately, there are few regions in the world that Baccash doesn't deem worth exploring. In the process, some franchise deals have invariably fallen by the wayside for a number of reasons. In many cases, however, the spotlight on the region as a potential OP market has been established. Baccash's global franchising concept - marrying local expertise with a financially and administratively sound 'parent' - has clearly been a phenomenal success in the OP world.

Last year alone, the company launched operations in Peru and Mexico, with both countries expected to have nine and six stores respectively by the end of the year. Indeed, Baccash puts his company's strategic emphasis next year firmly on expansion in the Americas.

Office 1 currently operates in 33 countries with a total store count of 600.
 

As a 13-year veteran of Staples, Jay Baitler has led the company's contract division from its inception to become the company's fastest growing business, with double-digit growth for the past seven years. In its latest Q4 results, Staples reported slightly slower sales growth in its overall North American Delivery business which includes three different entities - Business Contract, mail order operator Quill and Staples Business Delivery. That said, the division still grew a strong 12 per cent year on year.

Baitler's contract division serves the business-to-business customer, from the medium-sized company up to the Fortune 100. As one of the company's most senior and experienced executives, he has not only grown the business organically but also through the successful acquisition and integration of a number of independent office products companies.

2005 saw the acquisition of Prime Office Products while in 2006, the company acquired Kross Office Outfitters. Last year, Baitler identified and acquired American Identity, one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of corporate identity products in the United States. This strategic addition gives Staples a stronger presence in the $18 billion promotional products market, and complements Staples' existing operations and brings greater value to its customers. Like Staples, American Identity is known for operational excellence, great customer service and loyal customer relationships.

 

Wayne Beacham has been at the helm of SP Richards (SPR) since 2002. He has implemented a variety of changes at the second largest OP wholesaler in the US, many driven by the growing need of independent dealers to be technologically on a par with the big boxes.

SPR's Enhanced E-Content, developed last year, aims to give dealers an improved online buying experience for their customers. The initiative has received very positive reviews so far.

MyAnalyst is another new tool from SPR. Designed to take a more strategic look at how pricing is established, it aims to help both dealers as well as SPR itself to influence sales and margins, and drive higher profits to invest back into the business.

Most recently, SPR has dominated the headlines with its acquisition of regional OP wholesaler O Henry, a purchase that will give SPR greater coverage in the mid-Atlantic and south-eastern region of the US.

 

Santiago Bilinkis has been involved with Officenet since the company was founded as an Argentina-based catalogue and web-based B2B office supplies company back in 1997.

Having survived - and indeed thrived - during Argentina's monetary crisis in the early days of the new millennium, Bilinkis stepped into the CEO hot seat in 2002 and further expanded the business not only in Argentina but also in Brazil. Two years later and the company had made such progress that US power player Staples took a good look and snapped up the then $50 million company, making its first step into the lucrative South American market.

Officenet was recently ranked 30th in Great Place to Work Institute Argentina's 2007 list.

The company continues to operate under its original name and is now part of Staples' international division. And it's going from strength to strength, with Brazil now the larger of Officenet's two markets by some margin.

 

Like the rest of the Depot management team, Brown is a man under pressure. The malaise in the firm's North American region has not affected its international business too badly, which operates in over 35 countries throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, either through wholly-owned and majority-owned entities or other ventures. The 2006 investments in Korea's Best Office, China's AsiaEC and Eastern Europe's B2B supplier Papirius should start to drive margin increases through 2008 as revenues for the region jump by an expected 50 percent.

The former Pepsico employee (which included a three-year stint as CFO at Pizza Hut UK) quit the restaurant industry to join Depot in 1998 with a view to one day getting a shot at the CFO role. After long time CFO Barry Goldstein retired he landed the post and later was appointed president of the retailer's international business in 2005. The recent departure of Patricia McKay from the CFO post means a reprisal of his old role until Depot finds a successor.

 

Now in his fourth year at TriMega Purchasing Association, president Charlie Cleary has led the organisation to three consecutive years of double-digit growth in total membership, revenues and rebates paid to members

With a total of 560 members, TriMega is the largest independent dealer buying group in the US and home to some of the most progressive and successful independent dealers in the US.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, TriMega's current strategic initiatives focus on continued member and revenue growth, and on expanding the reach of Triumph, a recently launched comprehensive training programme for sales and management development.

The association is also in the process of applying Mega Metrics, a new initiative developed to improve dealer operations through the effective mining of point-of-sale data. The first programme of its type for independents, Cleary believes that POS data is finally having a significant impact in margin performance, consumer sales behaviour and merchandising efforts. It appears there's plenty of momentum to carry TriMega into the next 20 years and beyond.

Gary D'Andrea is still relatively new in his position as chief operating officer of Grand & Toy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OfficeMax, and the largest commercial OP company in Canada. Having replaced Garry Wood last November (although Wood was president of Grand & Toy), D'Andrea brings extensive experience in strategic business planning and management to his new role.

D'Andrea's has more than 20 years' experience in senior executive positions in companies such as Hudson's Bay, Blockbuster, Royal Trust and Bristol Myers.

Founded in 1882, Grand & Toy is one of just a few truly nationwide operators in the vast Canadian OP landscape, with 2,200 associates in 26 commercial sales offices, seven distribution centres and more than 50 retail locations from coast to coast.
 

With less than two years in the hot seat at Canada-based Novexco, CEO Robert de Montigny is keen to spread the word that Novexco is far from just a dealer group with a wholesale operation, but instead "a multi-faceted organisation with a four-pronged strategic focus".

Created from two individual groups - SOPA and Bureaulab - in 1996, the newly formed Novexco added the banner of BuroPLUS to its membership in 2000.

With approximately 80 dealer members in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec, including over 100 retail locations under the BuroPLUS banner, Novexco's dealers account for about 66 percent of the organisation's total sales.

Financially sound, de Montigny is always on the lookout for expansion opportunities, and in the short-term this is likely to take the shape of filling any existing gaps in the Quebec area.
 

Feeling the pinch that has so drastically dented results at Office Depot, OfficeMax and Duncan saw its 2007 profits increase but felt warnings for the year ahead. The third largest retailer would love to steal a march on Depot and is performing well under the circumstances. Profits rose by 18 percent in 2007 despite being dragged down by US contract operations.

Overall sales rose by 1.2 percent to $9.1 billion last year as a result of new store openings while contract sales in the US fell by 1.2 percent. However, it could be in for more of a bumpy ride this year, with sales dropping far more in the last quarter. Duncan said he expected the pressure on sales to continue at the beginning of 2008, and that the company would continue to pursue margin and cost management initiatives throughout the year. Duncan was recently selected to receive the Anti-Defamation League's Torch of Liberty.

 

Only the third CEO in the IT distributor's 23-year history, Dutkowsky took over in 2006 after a long career in the IT sector including 20 years at IBM.

Since his arrival, Dutkowsky has been involved with the firm's JV with European wireless distributor Brightstar to create Brightstar Europe, a pan-european organisation seeking to capitalise on the mobile and wireless market in the continent. In March this year the firm acquired Scribona, a broadline IT distributor with operations in Sweden, Finland and Norway. Scribona employs approximately 300 staff and reported sales last year of around $1.3 billion.
 

As one of just a few sizeable pure eCommerce OP companies, Tony Ellison has captured the needs and wants of the market perfectly. Having founded Shoplet.com in 1994, ahead of the eCom boom of the late 1990s, his company was profitable before others had even thought of a web shop.

2007 was another banner year for Shoplet with tremendous growth figures, says Ellison. And as the internet becomes the medium of choice for customers, he considers his company to be very well positioned in capitalising on this trend.

Last year saw the successful launch of its ShopGreen initiative, a section on its website that offers over 8,000 eco-friendly products. In just a short time, Shoplet has become one of the largest providers of eco-friendly products in the OP sector.
 

 

Jim Estill is CEO of SYNNEX Canada, the IT distributor that last year became heavily involved with the OP industry through its distribution deal with US dealer group is.group (initially completed in 2006). In addition to running SYNNEX Canada, Estill is also in charge of the company's North American supplies business. In the past, SYNNEX's main strength lay in the printer category, but the natural progression of that success has seen the compnany push more into the supplies side.

In addition to providing wholesale services to IT resellers, the company is now also pushing hard into selling to independent office products dealers. As mentioned above, one notable relationship in this industry so far has come through is.group as SYNNEX does all the warehousing and logistics for the group's RDC programme.

Estill says about his company's broadened focus: "We are seeing an increasing number of independent OP dealers that sell IT products like printers and computers, so they appreciate us supplying these to them as well as the toners and inks that we are so strong in."
 

Kalunga is one of Brazil's largest specialist wholesalers of office, school and computer products. It's also a true multi-channel player with a considerable B2B as well as retail presence. A notoriously private and media-shy company, Kalunga is run by managing director Paulo Garcia.

The company was founded in the 1970s by Garcia's father Damia Garcia with a small stationery shop in Sao Paulo. Today, Kalunga has 40 stores in Sao Paulo city, the state of Sao Paulo as well as in three other states in Brazil. Its overall product mix comprises approximately 10,000 SKUs. The company works closely with local as well as global OP manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard, Faber-Castell, Bic, Henkel and 3M.

US dealer group is.group has had a tough couple of years, with much criticism being directed at its controversial RDC programme - both from within and outside the organisation. With several dealers having left in the early days of the initiative, the group's membership number has stabilised over the past year and now stands at a steady 285 independent dealers.

Concerns over the sustainability of the programme have also been put to rest, says president/CEO Mike Gentile, with product worth over $100 million now being channelled through the RDC.

One of is.group's most recent and - according to Gentile - most important initiatives has been its licensing agreement with Advantage Marketing Wholesalers and the creation of the first-ever private label brand for independent dealers in the US.

Called Legacy, the brand currently comprises 500 office supply items in 39 key commodity-based categories.
 

Under Gochnauer's stewardship, the world's largest office supplies wholesaler has continued its steady growth despite slowing sales in the technology sector. This was partly down to large success in jan/san, which prompted the company to acquire ORS Nasco Holding for $180 million in November last year. ORS, a wholesale distributor of industrial supplies, sells exclusively to independent distributors. Gochnauer's philanthropy and industry leadership will be celebrated at the next City of Hope 'Spirit of Life' dinner in September after he was named the 2008 honouree. 

Dave Guernsey remains one of the most fervent advocates of the independent dealer cause in the US. Formerly in charge of international buying group consortium BPGI, Guernsey now concentrates on Guernsey Office Products, one of the largest OP dealerships in the Virginia and Washington DC area.

Up until now, Guernsey has largely steered clear of acquisitions, preferring instead to concentrate on organic growth, but this is about to change. For the short-term future, the company has two main strategic priorities, according to Guernsey. The first one involves a couple of acquisitions that are hoped to be completed within a year. The primary objective behind the move is to expand the company's trading area to more of the mid-Atlantic region. That said, adds Guernsey: "If we are unsuccessful with the appropriate acquisitions, we will move forward with greenfielding operations to the north and south of current Guernsey locations. We will remain focused on the B2B consumer with emphasis on the small to medium business segments."

Secondly, the company is re-evaluating its current supply chain partnerships. As Guernsey says: "I remain convinced that an independent's growth relies on making wise partnering choices. In light of that, I do expect that Guernsey will see some things change this year."
 

ECI² under Kapp has spent the last 12 months solidifying and most recently bolstering its position as the industry's largest provider of back office systems. Growth in the US has helped the firm spread its wings across the Atlantic, culminating in this year's launch of ECI² Europe.

In June 2007, it acquired eBuzz, a pan-European B2B software house based in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands. eBuzz has been in operation for more than 15 years and its multi-lingual Easy Order eCommerce systems are widely used throughout the continent by major companies in the office products industry and related verticals, as well as by companies in other distribution industries.

Further to this, in February 2008, ECI² Europe acquired the office products division of UK-based software developer Integrity Software Systems. The deal included Integrity's Vision and Atomic business systems, as well as the sales, support and development teams for both products. ECI² Europe now provides technology solutions to around 400 dealers in the UK and Ireland.
 

Apart from his day job at North Carolina-based Forms and Supply, Leazer is a heavily-active and well-known figure on the independent dealer scene. He is currently the current chairman of the board of directors at American Office Products Distributors (AOPD), which continues to show strong growth in national and regional contract and federal government business, posting a double-digit increase in contract sales for the fourth consecutive year.

Leazer is also actively involved with NOPA as a member of the Government Affairs Advisory Council. In March he testified before Congress on its behalf, regarding the use of small business 'pass-throughs' by large companies to gain improper access to government contracts set-aside for small business. Leazer's legacy is now cemented in history after - in what must be in an industry first - his NOPA testimony made its way onto YouTube.
 

Responsible for leading the company's worldwide merger and acquisition activities, Luechtefeld has been with Depot since 1993. Noted for her "entrepreneurial style and pioneering spirit" she is best known for turning Depot's online store into a giant, second only to Amazon at the turn of the century. An executive committee member, she was appointed to her current newly-created position in 2005 overseeing Depot's global supply chain, logistics, warehouse, distribution and inventory systems as well as the global IT systems, applications and infrastructure. A powerful figure and - shockingly - the only woman in the Top 100.
 

With 25 members in the dispersed Canadian market, Basics Office Products is the Cambridge, Ontario-based national network of independent office products dealers. It aims to serve consumers as well as multi-sized corporations across the country through its local, 100 percent Canadian-owned and operated dealers.

Operational since 1976, Basics increases dealers' purchasing leverage and helps them in establishing competitive vendor contracts.

Sean Macey has been president of Basics since 2006. While he admits that dealers in Canada need to work more closely together in order to combat the might of the big boys, Macey would not be drawn on what exactly needs to be done to make this happen.

Another new face to our Top 100 list, Mike Maggio joined ActionEmco in 2004 as senior VP of sales and a member of the company's board of directors. In 2006, he became president/COO, adding the CEO title in January 2007.

Maggio has over 30 years' experience in this industry. His OP career began at family-run independent dealer Independent Office Products where he worked for 12 years. The next 14 years were spent at SP Richards (SPR), the second largest OP wholesaler in the US. He began his wholesale career as operations manager at SPR, advancing over the years to general manager, VP of sales and finally division vice president. Since joining ActionEmco, Maggio has overseen the re-organisation of the entire business, following the management buyout in partnership with investment firm Center Partners in 2003.

His goal has always been to better support today's independent office products dealers. In addition, Maggio, along with the management team, has transformed the culture of the entire organisation from two businesses, one in Michigan and one in New Jersey, to one organisation, with clear and focused strategies. ActionEmco is now a prominent regional player in the US and the country's third largest OP wholesaler.
 

Founded in Toronto in 1991, Staples-owned Business Depot is Canada's largest supplier of office supplies, business machines, office furniture and business services for the small business and home office customer.
Presiding at the helm of this astonishing success story is Steve Matyas, the company's first ever employee and one of the growth drivers behind the business.

Known in Canada as Staples Business Depot - or Bureau en Gros in the province of Quebec - the company now has over 13,500 employees serving customers through more than 290 office superstores as well as its catalogue and eCommerce activities.

Before joining the company, he was VP and COO at Koffler and Associates where he was responsible for the operation of a chain of greeting card and stationery stores.

Apart from his responsibilities at Staples Business Depot, Matyas is also active in several other retail activities and serves on a variety of councils and advisory committees.
 

The enigmatic publicity-shy Meehan has attracted many admirers since his tenure began back in 1978. Now the largest privately-owned office products dealer in the US (and probably the world), WB Mason reached sales of approximately $622 million in 2007. The company and its leader refuse to stop pushing the business on and although currently serving the New England and Mid-Atlantic states, who knows where it's famous trucks will end up with Meehan behind the wheel. 

Prior to his move to Corporate Express in 2001, Mutschler held positions as president and COO of North America at US Office Products, and various management positions with Office Depot and Eastman before that. With a career spanning 23 years, his huge experience of the North American market made him an easy choice for the role at CE when he took over in August 2007. And it won't be easy for the man seen as a safe pair of hands by CE bosses. The firm experienced near-flat results in the region throughout 2007 and Mutschler will be hoping that any fallout from the Staples bid will allow him to complete his work. 

Founded in 1990, DC Mayorista (or Dealers Club) has grown to become the main office supplies and IT consumables wholesaler in Mexico, with sales in excess of $80 million. The company stocks over 5,000 products from more than 100 global brands in 13 different categories. The firm offers its customers a sophisticated online ordering system and prides itself on its customer service initiatives. 

Jim O'Brien is a new entrant to OPI's Top 100 list of resellers. That said, he's by no means new to the office products arena and could easily be described as an OP veteran.

O'Brien joined the industry in 1973 working his way through the ranks of the Federal/Champion/McKesson organisation. He served as regional VP for McKesson Office Products before joining nationwide wholesaler SP Richards (SPR) in 1987.

After successfully guiding the creation of two distribution centres and opening a new facility in the Boston market, he was promoted to division vice president in 1992 and was responsible for the company's largest division.

He was promoted again in 1999 when he joined SPR's headquarters group as VP of dealer development. In this role, he was responsible for the marketing and sales support of independent dealers. This includes the company's successful Advantage Program and Advantage Business Conference.

Office Depot is the second largest OP reseller in the world after chief rival Staples. But while that's a significant accolade in the first place, the messages from Depot's Delray Beach, Florida headquarters haven't been good over the last year or so, and Odland's reign in particular has come under intense fire.

With most of its its divisions under attack for one reason or another - disappointing sales from acquisitions, the loss of the state of Georgia contract and investigations in other states, audit enquiries into its vendor programme, poor retail performance partly as a result of a slowing US economy, the drop of the Viking brand (impending in Europe) - the list is getting longer and longer.

And, drafted in from Autozone partly for his cost-cutting expertise and experience, Odland is for now also unable to let the figures do the talking. In its recent Q4 results, profits were down by 85 percent to $18.8 million from $126.6 million in the same quarter last year. Depot's share price hovered in the low double-digit range with a closing price of $11.04 at the time of going to press. On the positive side, Depot continues to impress with its environmental programmes and has won a range of awards for its efforts in this area.
 

Philips stepped up to plate after the resignation of 25-year company veteran and former president and CEO Ken May in March this year. May's departure comes midway through an aggressive expansion plan to open 300 new office and print centres in the US throughout fiscal 2008. The company has also been redesigning 110 existing centres and introducing 20 new locations internationally, as part of an overall plan to provide small businesses and travelling professionals with even greater access to the company's office and print services and the FedEx network.

In his role as acting CEO, Philips is responsible for more than 1,800 locations and 22,000 workers in 11 countries. In his day job as COO and EVP of Office and Print Services, he oversees the company's worldwide business performance, including operations, retail sales, marketing and strategy functions.
 

Phipps was promoted to the newly-created position of president of United Stationers Supply off the back of his work as senior VP of operations. The new role will combine leadership of sales, operations, and merchandising for the company's core office supply and technology businesses, putting him right at the heart of the business. A "natural choice" for the position, Phipps, 44, has been with the company for three years.

Before joining United Stationers, he spent 13 years with McKinsey & Company where he was a partner. He was one of the leaders in the firm's North American Operations Effectiveness Practice, and co-founded and led its Service Strategy and Operations Initiative, which focused on driving significant operational improvement in complex service and logistics environments - experience which should all serve him well as United continues to fend of its powerful rival SP Richards.
 

It's been another year of frenetic activity at international dealer group consortium BPGI. And as CEO Jim Preston says, 2007 was a very successful year indeed for both BPGI and the independent dealer community.

Dealer sales to end users were up in the high single digit range in all of BPGI's geographic regions, while purchases from BPGI vendors also increased across the board, often by more than ten percent.

BPGI's total membership now stands at 22 dealer groups, with a total of 3,600 dealers selling to 26 countries. The consortium added three groups in 2007 - pan-European alliance EOSA, Sweden's RKV and Sacfom/Buro+ from France bringing the group's total combined sales to $14 billion.

The raison d'etre for BPGI - ensuring that its dealer group members enjoy better purchasing power - has again been achieved, with global purchasing compliance hitting 99.3 percent and significant savings being made through successful purchasing initiatives in the areas of private label, EOS and IT hardware.
 

In the OP world, there's no bigger name than Staples, the mighty $19.4 billion reseller of all office-related supplies. The company's power broker is Ron Sargent, chairman and CEO since 2005.

Sargent has been absolutely crucial in shaping the company into what it is today. His forte - even his fiercest rivals will testify to that - is outstanding strategy and almost faultless execution. In the domestic market, Staples' North American Delivery division has seen a magnificent 14 percent sales increase in sales in 2007, more than offsetting the 3 percent sales drop in the retail arena where most industry players have had a tough time in view of the sluggish US economy.

The question on everybody's lips, however, is whether Sargent will succeed in his public hostile takeover bid for Dutch contract stationer Corporate Express. The first offer of €2.5 billion ($4 billion) was quickly rebuffed.
Sargent's latest grand plan is sure to dominate the headlines for the next few months, maybe even the year.
 

Named president of Depot's North American Business Solutions operation in July 2007, Schmidt brought with him 30 years of diverse business expertise and leadership. Before joining the company, he spent 12 years with ACNielsen Corporation, the world's largest marketing information and research company, reaching the top as president and CEO. In his new role he succeeded Cindy Campbell, who served as EVP of the business solutions division since 2003. Schmidt oversees eCommerce, direct mail and catalogue channels.

He recently implemented a north-east turnaround strategy to salvage some of the customers it lost following the acquisition of Allied, which includes "customer re-acquisition, a new contact strategy and a new service model". The jury's still out on whether Schmidt's plan will succeed but he'll certainly have to draw on all his experience to halt an exodus of former Allied customers towards rivals WB Mason, Staples and the independent community.
 

CEO at the world's largest technology distributor since June 2005, Spierkel leads a mammoth organisation employing 13,700 workers in 35 countries.

With more than 27 years' experience in global operations management he is recognised as one of the best operators in international business. Under his leadership, IM has seen strong growth, most recently through a focus on China via the acquisition of Tech Pacific. The largest acquisition in company history is beginning to bed in nicely for Spierkel, turning a once struggling region into what he believes will be the largest in IM's armoury in a few years. In 2007, the company reported total sales of $35 billion and profit of $276 million, showing a sales increase of 12 percent, the third double-digit growth year in four years.
 

Eddie Tutt continues to be in charge of Wal-Mart Stores' office products offering in the US as the company's VP of stationery.

As a mass market and general merchandise retailer, Wal-Mart wouldn't typically qualify for a place in OPI's Top 100 list of resellers. That said, it's the world's largest retailer and the fact that stationery and back-to-school supplies and commodity items as well as computer consumables and hardware account for a considerable percentage of its overall business make it an easy selection.

At the end of January, Wal-Mart reported phenomenal full-year net sales of $375 billion, an impressive increase of 8.6 percent over fiscal year 2007.

While supercentres will be the primary driver for expansion for the retail giant in the US, internationally the focus will be on different-sized format stores, taking into consideration local retail preferences. Whatever the format, the amount of total office products sold is likely to increase which is a worrying prospect for OP resellers with less magnificent purchasing power.
 

After posting a heavy loss in the summer of 2006, Vander Zanden has overseen a turnaround plan to simplify the education supplies company. Working on simplifying the business and focusing on core assets, the plan included the sale of Specialty's video production division, School Specialty Media (SSM), integrating its category management structure and a review of the firm's position in the reading and literacy publishing market.

The results could be seen in School Specialty's revenue in 2007, which reached a record $1 billion - a 6.7 percent increase over 2006. The firm's Specialty segment revenue grew 12.3 percent, primarily driven by the firm's earlier acquisition of Delta Education in August 2005. School Specialty should see revenue in fiscal 2008 of between $1.06 billion and $1.09 billion, which includes $20 million in anticipated revenue from four of California's largest districts agreeing to adopt School Specialty's science curriculum.
 

Greg Welchans is another new face to OPI's Top 100. As president of Supplies Network, the largest privately-owned wholesaler of IT consumables in the US, Welchans sees his company as being solely directed towards independent dealers.

With a tally of 4,000 dealer customers on his books at the moment, Welchans' focus on this channel has been a considered decision. He knows from personal experience about the might of the power players, having worked for some of the biggest names in the US OP industry, including BT Office Products, Office Depot, Corporate Express and USOP.

Having joined Supplies Network in 2001 as director of marketing, he is now responsible for sales, sales operations, marketing and product management.

Supplies Network's sales have more than doubled over the past five years - without acquisitions - and Welchans contributes this growth directly to the health of the independent dealer. As for this year, he says: "The US market in 2008 will have its challenges, but we are optimistic about the growth of the independent dealer. We are focused on the success of these dealers and will continue to invest in our business to help them grow!"
 

Spicers has become a strong force in the German OP market. Having entered the country in 1998, the last decade has seen the increasingly European wholesaler overcome its teething problems in the country, partly due to managing director Thomas Apelrath.

Apelrath joined Spicers Germany in 2004 - the year the wholesaler broke even in the country - from Toshiba where he was general manager of German and Austrian operations. With 280 staff in two locations in Germany, Spicers is now one of three major logistics operators in the country with close links to dealer group Büroring.
It's also the third largest contributor of Spicers Europe's revenues accounting for about 10 percent of the wholesaler's total sales of between £550 million and £600 million ($1.1 billion and $1.2 billion). Spicers Germany's revenues alone grew 9 percent over the last 12 months, with over 20 percent of that growth coming from new product categories such as jan/san and breakroom supplies.

2007 also saw the launch of Spicers Germany's 'Top-Shop Concept' which is directed at B2C-orientated retail outlets and takes its lead from category management philosophies. It's the company's first foray into directly addressing end user needs in Germany.
 

2007 saw the continued success and profitability of Office Club members, says CEO Mark Austen who founded the dealer group in 1992. As a whole the group increased its purchases with almost all vendors and through the wholesale channel. Combined turnover of the group's members remained relatively unchanged for 2007 at around £250 million ($500 million) despite seeing the actual number of members fall slightly to 240 due to acquisitions and people withdrawing from the industry.

Highlights over the last 12 months include significant investments in member services, notably eMarketing and web stores, and in production facilities to provide members with value-added services such as poster printing and vinyl cutting. Office Club has also held a series of successful events including the 2007 London conference and a national roadshow held at the beginning of 2008 which took in 10 UK cities.

Austen is well-known within the industry for his involvement with BPGI and in 2007 he assumed the chairmanship of the $14 billion purchasing alliance.
 

The fact that independent dealer group Office Supplies Denmark (OSD) has a 30 percent share in the highly competitive Danish OP market speaks volumes for the integrity of the company which was founded in 1999. With Lyreco and Corporate Express investing heavily in their Scandinavian operations, OSD has been able to tough it out with the globals and it deservedly picked up the Dealer Group of the Year award at this year's European Office Products Awards in Frankfurt. Niels-Friis Autzen took over the managing director's role in April 2007 after several years as purchasing director, and one of his main challenges going forward will be to ensure a smooth transition to a common IT platform for all members, which is planned to begin in early 2009. 

 
The European Office Supplies Alliance (EOSA) has had a much-needed injection of life over the past few months and that's in no small measure due to its new chairman Peter Basci.

Created five years ago, EOSA now has 11 member companies with combined revenues of €750 million ($1.2 billion). All its members are substantial B2B operators in their respective European countries. EOSA also last year joined international buying consortium BPGI, adding to the international outlook it already had through its partnership with OfficeMax in the US.

While Basci is leading the alliance's expansion plan, it's not all about adding members he says: "We soon have to start closing down this phase we're currently in and move from quantity to quality."
 

 
Matthias Baumann stands at the helm of Office World, the Zurich, Switzerland-based multi-channel supplier of technology supplies, office products and equipment. Having taken on the CEO mantle in 1999 at the tender age of 26, Baumann has very successfully steered Office World through some rough waters. One of his toughest jobs was undoubtedly the closure of all Office World stores in the German market in 2003 in view of mounting losses in Europe's largest economy.

Despite growing pricing pressures and an increasingly competitive business environment, Office World increased its 2007 revenues to CHF115.7 million ($114 million), up 3.3 percent from the previous year.
In fact, despite being perhaps best known for its chain of 19 office supplies superstores in the Swiss market, Office World has had substantial success in being the first retailer to recently introduce a customer online self-service terminal to order over 6,000 ink cartridges, toner cartridges, ink ribbons and paper.

By recent standards, 2007 could be classified as a pretty quiet year for Lyreco with little in the way of acquisition activity apart from taking a stake in its Egyptian partner Speed Send. However, Eric Bigeard and his team have been far from idle with the tasks of completing the integration of Ahrend and Swiss supplier Büro-Fürrer heading the to-do list for the year. Lyreco Germany officially saw the light of day, while logistics operations in Germany and Benelux have been consolidated into two distribution centres (DCs), including a new €10 million ($15 million) investment in the Hanover DC.

The year also saw the completion of new headquarters and DCs in the company's Australian and Danish operations, plus the consolidation of Canadian distribution into one DC in Kingston, meaning Lyreco Canada can now serve the Toronto and Quebec markets from one location.

While all this has been going on, organic sales rose very nicely by 8 percent to €2.2 billion, the UK, Spain, Italy and Poland all posting double-digit sales growth, and Bigeard has already said that the organic growth rate is expected to be about the same in 2008. The company's aptly named CASH zone (Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary) has already posted an amazing 500 percent growth rate at the start of this year.
At the end of 2007 Bigeard swept aside Lyreco sell-off rumours as gossip-mongering, and OPI predicts that it is more likely that before the year is out he will be on the acquisition trail again rather than be courting potential buyers.
 

Operating about 140 stores throughout England, Birks is responsible for Staples' UK retail, online and catalogue operation. Birks has broad experience in office products retailing and prior to joining Staples was VP and managing director of Office Depot UK, where he played a key role in launching and growing the company's contract business. He previously worked in various executive positions with ACCO, Lyreco and 3M. Birks reports to Theo van Brandenburg, president of Staples' European Retail business. 

There are few people who have as big an influence on the Russian OP market as Komus's Sergey Bobrikov. The company he set up in 1991 encompasses retail, wholesale and manufacturing activities, while at the same time acting as the official distributor for 110 products. Komus's geographical presence is the broadest of any player in the Russian market with 24 sales agencies dealing with a massive 105,000 corporate customers. Retail operations consist of 54 outlets, 34 of which are in Moscow where the Komus brand enjoys 94 percent recognition with consumers. 2007 saw a $45 million investment in a new distribution facility on the outskirts of the Russian capital. 

 
Kaut-Bullinger is a company that doesn't boast about its success. Media-shy and difficult to get to know, the traditional, family-run business simply gets on with the job of defending and manifesting its reputation as Germany's largest independent dealer. Its status as a formidable player in the German market was recently confirmed during the European Office Products Awards ceremony, when Kaut-Bullinger won the Reseller of the Year Award.

Frans-Josef Busenkell stands tall at the head of the company that, only a couple of years ago, faced some severe problems in its operations, resulting in a series of restructuring and streamlining measures.

Today, Kaut-Bullinger has eight office supplies retail shops in the southern states of Germany. Its delivery business operates nationwide, with 19 locations all over the country. Customers are served both from its central warehouse near Munich as well as through a number of independent distribution partners.

Fiducial Office Solutions is the number three player in the French market after Lyreco and Office Depot, and 2007 was a good year with sales up by a healthy 6.5 percent to €209 million ($314 million), comfortably beating the market average of 3.5 percent. Jean-Claude Carquillat's team has been focusing on more profitable contracts and cost-cutting efficiencies and this has helped operating profits increase by around 80 percent to €8.6 million.

Fiducial's Progress own brand counts in the region of 1,000 different products and has been boosted by the consolidation of Asian sourcing at the company's representative office in Shanghai which has been open just over a year.

The core French market accounts for 96 percent of total business, but the Belgian operations are doing well, with sales up by 15 percent in 2007, while Fiducial Spain has yet to reach break even after starting up in 2006. Carquillat says that the company expects 2008 sales to exceed €220 million.
 

As EVP of Office Depot Europe, Dirk Collin has a challenging task on his hands. And with less than 18 months in the job, it hasn't been easy for him over the past year or so.

On the plus side, Depot has been making great strides in expanding its presence in Europe, through a new greenfield operation in Poland, an expanded retail presence in Hungary, as well as a number of successful new partnerships in Norway and Denmark. The company has also broken ground for new facilities in Germany and the Netherlands.

However the UK and Ireland businesses have struggled and been contributory factors to some of the company's recent profit decline and operating margin compression.

Last year, Collin also surprised the audience at OPI's European conference by announcing Depot's preference for a single brand strategy in Europe. For the moment, this is taking shape in the form of a co-branding period with the Viking brand likely to be eventually phased-out in Europe.
 

Corporate Express pulled off quite a coup when it poached Damman in October last year. The well-known figure with 20 years' experience in the industry carries a big reputation to match his stature. Since his appointment he has overseen the acquisition of Danish dealer Møller & Landschultz. Møller, based in Espergærde, has a strong presence in the Copenhagen area with large and mid-size customers. It employs 66 people and is expected to realise 2007 revenue of approximately €18 million ($28.1 million). Damman knows the territory extremely well and he will relish the opportunity to control the largest B2B contract stationer in Europe. We predict that Damman will feature on these pages for years to come. 

Stefano di Veroli continues to develop both his C'ART retailing business and the Office 1 franchise in Italy. The C'ART stationery and gifts store network has increased to 110 stores throughout the country and there have been two high profile openings recently with a 9,000 sq ft store opening in the main shopping street in Milan and a 1,000 sq ft outlet in Rome's Via del Corso, one of the world's most famous shopping streets.

Meanwhile, the Office 1 franchise continues to grow profitably and awareness of the brand is increasing as more stores are opened. There are now 35 Office 1 superstores in Italy and 2008 sees the launch of an Office 1 web franchising offer, an online concept for franchisees who want to run a purely web-based business.
 

After taking the helm of the European wholesaler's UK business in February 2007, Doherty knew he was in for a busy time. The UK division, which comprises 50 percent of Spicers' total revenue, had been suffering from a deterioration in margins. However, things are starting to look up for the company since Doherty's arrival. A new management team is said to have "taken decisive action" and there is now believed to be "good momentum behind a range of improvement initiatives, principally aimed at enhancing the sales mix, raising service levels and lowering costs". The division's distribution network has also been streamlined further through the closure of the Park Royal RDC in London last June. 

Appointed in September last year, Drakeford replaced Euroffice's founder and former CEO, George Karibian, who became executive chairman.

Known for being an aggressive online growth agent, Drakeford joined the online retailer from T-Mobile UK, where he replaced 100 percent of the firm's web architecture and infrastructure and grew sales by over 200 percent in two years. Prior to that, he was at Orange, where he grew the online channel from launch into a top ten online retailer.

In the first six month of his new role at Euroffice, Drakeford moved quickly to rebrand the entire organisation. He will be looking to uphold the company's reputation as a regular fixture on the UK's fastest-growing companies lists, where it has reported 49 percent sales growth year on year. Total sales at the firm exceeded £18 million ($35.9 million) for the year ended 31 March 2007.
 

With revenues of €660 million ($1 billion) and 550 independent dealer members across the country, Soennecken is by far the largest dealer group in Germany.

Founded in 1926, the group has encountered many challenges over the years and its future looked in some danger back in the late 1990s. Then renamed Branion from the previous two names of Soennecken and Büro Aktuell, Dr Benedikt Erdmann and his new team in 2002 began to turn the group around.

Now chairman of the organisation's board of directors, Dr Erdmann can take considerable credit for converting an ailing and somewhat cumbersome group into a lean organisation that currently supports its dealer members in 1,200 locations in Germany, working with over 900 brand manufacturers.
 

It's not one of the big boxes, but Greece-based Plaisio Computers is right up there in terms of strategy, execution and - most importantly - sales and profit growth. Founder and CEO George Gerardos is the man of the moment, having recently won the coveted Industry Achievement award at the European Office Products Awards ceremony in Frankfurt. And for good reason - under the leadership of Gerardos, multi-channel operator Plaisio has become a leading player in the Greek OP market, with a continuously growing market share.

The company's sales grew a staggering 23.8 percent in 2007, to €385 million ($593 million), while profits (after taxes) increased an impressive 36.2 percent to €13.7 million.

Plaisio now operates 21 stores in Greece, the latest one having been opened in 2007 with a footprint of 17,000 sq ft. In addition to its retail presence, Plaisio has a formidable B2B presence in the country - its web shop is by far the most visited commercial site in Greece according to Focus-Bari research. Its new 225,000 sq ft distribution centre in Athens is currently under construction and expected to be completed later on this year.

Three years ago, the company expanded into Bulgaria and, in 2007, reported revenues of 16.3 million in the country. It's expecting to break even this year in this relatively new market.

Gerardos has always fostered strong international relations and his company has been a member of wholesaling alliance interACTION from the early days. interACTION's Q-Connect private label range achieved sales of €20 millon for Plaisio in Greece and Bulgaria last year, an increase of 36 percent compared to the prior year.
 

Since it was founded in France in 1966 by André Guichard and his son Jean-Pierre, workplace equipment and supplies distance selling company Manutan has grown into a pan-European group with 23 subsidiaries operating in 20 countries and it boasts an impressive 600,000 clients. Right from the start the Guichards had international ambitions and Manutan has steadily moved into new markets through acquisitions or start-ups, most recently with the start of operations in Russia and the acquisition of UK storage solutions company Rapid Racking.

Manutan's sales have been climbing strongly over the last few years to reach just under €450 million ($675 million) in 2007 and have jumped by 10 percent in the first quarter of 2008. Not one to rest on his laurels, president Jean-Pierre Guichard has instigated a 5-point strategic plan including the deployment of a common IT platform, developing internet sales and expanding into new markets.
 

 
José Luis Hernández is one of the stalwarts of the OP industry. His name is synonymous with Carlin, Spain's multi-channel franchise operator that Hernández co-founded with friend and business partner Mark Baccash in 1989.

The company is now one of the leading players in the Spanish market, with 478 retail stores across the country, a thriving contract business and total sales of €160 million to €180 million ($248 million to $279 million).
As well as competing with Spain's thousands of papelerias, Carlin is also a formidable player in the B2B business, battling it out with Lyreco's Ofiservice as well as other international players such as Viking. Unbeknown to many, Carlin's current channel focus is 60 percent on delivery and 40 percent on retail. Both sales opportunities are available to franchisees through a varied mix of contract options.

Hernández attributes Carlin's success partly to the fact that his staff work in very close collaboration with its franchisees, doing much of the day-to-day administrative work, including analysis of costs and margins. This allows the entrepreneurial franchisees to spend 90 percent of their time selling office supplies.
 

Andrey Kudryashev continues to lead Moscow-based Pragmatic Express on its meteoric rise to the very top echelons of the Russian OP business. Sales growth for the winner of the 2007 European Office Products Awards Emerging Reseller of the Year prize has once again increased by over 50 percent over the last 12 months. The company's reputation has benefited recently after it was chosen as Lyreco's strategic partner in the Russian market. 

Martin Leitgeb from the Czech Republic knew early on in life that his future lay in the office supplies business. Having sold stationery goods for a couple of years after his time at university, he saw the potential of the market and co-founded OP wholesaler and distributor Activa together with his partner Arnost Broz.

Since then, the two entrepreneurs have carved a sizeable niche in the fragmented Czech OP market. With 2007 revenues of €55 million ($87 million), a product offering of 12,500 SKUs and a 450-strong workforce, the company now also has an increasingly strong presence in Slovakia. It operates as Activa Slovakia in the country.
 

Ofiservice was Lyreco's first international acquisition and it now holds the number one spot in the Spanish contract market with sales of over €120 million ($180 million). The Barcelona-based company employs 800 staff and has 300,000 sq ft of warehouse space. 2007 was a fairly flat year in terms of sales, but for 2008 the company has revamped its website and has freshened up its catalogue - 800 of the 6,000 products new for this year. 

As senior buying manager for British mass retailer Tesco, Simon Lunn is responsible for the stationery category for around 2,600 stores in the UK and in six European countries after sourcing operations were recently centralised. A key element in Tesco's growth strategy is its focus on non-food and this now accounts for £10 billion ($20 billion) in annual sales for the group as a whole. In 2007, stationery sales were up by 23 percent and Tesco's commitment to the category was underlined when it became a member of the BOSS Federation earlier in the year. 

It's been a good year for German dealer group Büroring, its managing director Carsten Marckmann and, by all accounts, for German dealers in general.

With total revenues growing by 7.3 percent to €173.5 million ($274 million), the group posted particularly strong increases in its central billing business to €145.6 million, while revenues from the central warehouse were relatively flat at €26.3 million (the remaining €1.6 million account for 'other business').

That said, Marckmann points to the central warehouse as being one of the important and most popular of all its service offerings. Its product portfolio was last year increased by 2,500 SKUs to a total of 10,000.

Total membership figures at Büroring were also on the up last year, from 351 at the beginning of 2007 to 360 by December.
 

The private equity buyout and merger of Kingfield Heath and ISA in June last year meant a reshuffle of the entire, new organisation. With a combined turnover of £550 million ($1 billion), employing 1,800 people across the UK and Ireland, the merger has changed the landscape of the wholesale and dealer channel in the region. Matini, the holding company created following the deal, oversees the so called 'super wholesaler' and Martin makes it into the Top 100 as its chief executive, replacing Kingfield's Alan Barclay who moves to CEO of the group. Martin was previously chairman of Kingfield Heath from 2004 and prior to that he was group finance director for The Stationery Office Group, which at the time included Banner Business Supplies (now office2office). Martin also sits above Andy Spence, the managing director of the combined wholesale business. 

Following a series of changes to its backroom operations, Integra has a new-look management team. Influential leader Rick Needle retired at the end of the year after being with Integra for ten years, from its inception with the merger of the NDA and Instat in 1997. Under his leadership the group grew to 360 members with consolidated sales approaching £700 million ($1.3 billion). In April, operations director Simon Rubach will leave to pursue other interests after 16 years. All of which leaves McDonough in control of a hugely important organisation in the UK market. He said the restructure was to "simplify and streamline internal procedures for the benefit of staff, members and suppliers" and enable Integra dealers to improve their profitability. 

Hungary counts undoubtedly as one of Office Depot's important and expanding European markets. With its retail store count up to 17 at year end 2007, from the previous year's total of 12 OP superstores, the company - under the leadership of Istvan Miholek - is poised to make its impact on the Hungarian market even bigger.

With a background in retailing as well as wholesaling, Miholek has been with Office Depot in Hungary from the very beginning, first as president of Depot's franchise partner Elso Iroda Superstore and now as country manager of the firm's wholly-owned subsidiary.

Depot has become a top seller in the Hungarian OP market since it first entered the country in 1997 and has plans for further retail expansion. That said, the company also has a growing delivery as well as internet business in Hungary. And this part of the company is likely to grow stronger, in line with Depot's pan-European strategy of improving profitability by growing the contract business on the continent.
 

Following a cost reduction exercise and restructure in 2007, office2office still managed to turn out strong results. Whether that can be sustained is down to Moate, who joined in August replacing Ray Peck. Moate joined from Johnson Service Group, a managed services company, where as CEO of the facilities management and specialist supplies division, he led and integrated a number of acquisitions. In June, o2o withdrew from an e-auction to supply office products to the MoD under a new four-year supply framework, losing out to Lyreco in the process. At the time it said it believed that the quoted selling prices would not generate acceptable profit margins for the company. On a brighter note, the company announced that a contract with the NHS had been extended to March 2009 and that it had received confirmation of a two-year extension through to 2010 of supply arrangements with HM Revenue & Customs. 

When it joined BPGI at the beginning of 2008, the purchasing alliance's CEO Jim Preston described France-based Buro+ as "one of the most progressive dealers in Europe", and managing director Roger Ortola certainly has his company operating on all fronts with its retail and B2B formats. The Hyperburo superstore chain has increased to 33 outlets with plans to double this number by 2012, the small store Buro+ Express format has increased to 60 and the Buro+ contract business counts over 180 members. 

Ryman is the only specialist commercial and family stationery retailer operating in the UK high street. Its history goes way back to 1893 when Henry Ryman opened the first store in London and Theo Paphitis took over the running of the by-then ailing chain in 1995 when his Chancerealm company acquired it for just £5 million ($10 million). Since then, he has transformed Ryman from a regional 90-store chain into a national chain with 250 outlets and sales approaching £150 million.

As part of this strategy, around 140 Partners and Stationery Box stores are currently being rebranded under the Ryman Stationery banner, a move which will help to further develop Ryman private label products and increase the product range to include more family-oriented items. As well as its retail outlets, Ryman also operates a mail order catalogue business Ryman Direct and online sales through its website.
 

Marking a massively important year for Popov, 2007 saw Russia's largest and hugely successful wholesaler merge with Top Pen, the first distributor of OP brands in the country. The October deal has enabled Top Pen and Bureaucrat to extend their market share to create an organisation - under the Bureaucrat title - with huge financial and operational power. The new entity is an OP/IT supplier that is able to offer a wide range of products and deliver to virtually every corner of the country, going some way to overcome the obstacle of effective distribution in the vast nation. The firm has been creating revenue increases of 50 percent year-on-year and in 2007 achieved sales of $620 million. 

Octavian Radu is the charismatic founder and president of RTC Holding, one of Romania's largest commercial groups with widespread involvement in the retail sector and in property development. Last year it generated €70 million ($105 million) in sales through its OP operations which include leading contract stationer Office Express, importer and distributor of promotional goods Ranco and its Top Office Products distributorship business. Radu says that he is looking to expand Office Express into neighbouring countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary and Moldova and is even considering floating parts of his empire on the London stock exchange. 

Offenburg, Germany-based mail order operator Printus is intensely media-shy and little is known about its founder/president Hans Schmid. Instead, Printus prefers to let its operational performance do the talking.
2007 marked the company's 30th year in business. Celebrated with a variety of special marketing campaigns, its anniversary year culminated in increased revenue figures that exceed the €400 million mark ($629 million).
Printus now has over two million customers in Germany and Austria. Schmid attributes a substantial part of the company's success to its relentless and uncompromising customer focus.
 

Ron Sargent's description of Patrick Seghin as "uniquely qualified" to run the European contract operations is proving to be more than mere corporate spin as the Frenchman continues to steadily drive the business forward and increase market share. Seghin's main focus over the last year has been on service levels and he has introduced an in-house key performance indicator known as 'Perfect Order' and led an in-depth study of all markets to better understand how to further improve customer satisfaction. 

As CEO and majority shareholder of Austria-based PBS-Holding, Anton Stahrlinger has become a true multi-channel player in his home country and beyond. One of its operating companies, PBS-Austria, was among the founding members of interACTION, the pan-European wholesale alliance that was created in 1997.

PBS-Holding encompasses a range of businesses, including the aforementioned wholesale company PBS-Austria which operates in the Austrian market and, under different names, also in a number of Eastern European countries, including Hungary.
 

In 2006 Office Depot acquired the Papirius business and became a major player in the office supplies industry throughout central and eastern Europe. Much of the operation is still lead by co-founder Petr Sýkora, who now operates the Prague-based business in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania on behalf of Office Depot while co-founder Jan Cerny is running Office Depot's business in Poland. The Company opened a new facility in Hostivice, Czech Republic last year to support its growing contract business. 

After a couple of years of intensely hard work acquiring, integrating and consolidating the four regional wholesalers (Kanzenel & Beisenherz, R&S, Hermann & Meyding and Alka) that now make up Germany's third major OP wholesaler, PBS Deutschland is finally firing on all cylinders.

With a brand new pricing system, sophisticated eCommerce software and all-integrated IT systems, the company has had its first year of 'normal' operations in 2007. And industry veteran and managing director Dieter Taffel is very pleased with the achievements of the past 12 months.
 

The head of the largest OP wholesaler in Europe has come through a difficult time over the past few years, but things appear to be looking up. Outside influences have worked in the company's favour: like the perceived conflict of interest surrounding the Kingfield Heath-ISA merger in the summer, which created opportunity for Spicers UK as former Kingfield dealer clients looked critically at the role of ISA's OP stationer, Supplies Team. On the continent, the two well-established businesses in France and the Benelux grew their revenue and maintained their good profit performance, and the more recently developed businesses in Spain and Italy grew strongly. 

As director of European wholesaler alliance interACTION, Jan van Belleghem is responsible for product purchasing and marketing of its Q-Connect private label brand, which now counts over 2,000 SKUs in 70 product groups. Q-Connect sales have been rising impressively in recent years, passing the €100 million ($150 million) mark in 2006 and experiencing double-digit growth again in 2007.

van Belleghem is currently working on a complete revamp of Q-Connect's labelling and packaging to make the products more retail-oriented.
 

Van Brandenburg joined Staples when the company acquired Office Centre Netherlands (OCN) from Metro/Makro in 1999. He led Staples' expansion in the Netherlands, nearly doubling the store base and since his appointment as president of the firm's European retail operation in 2003 has accrued more than 30 years of both management and merchandising experience in the supermarket and specialty retail industries. He is responsible for leading the growth of Staples' retail business in Europe and maintains responsibility as the managing director of Staples' OCN. Staples maintains a strong European presence with 268 retail stores in five countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom, listing Brussels in Belgium as the base of its retail business. 

A new face and a new company to OPI's Top 100! Winner of the coveted 'Wholesaler/distributor of the year' award at this year's European Office Products Awards, Netherlands-based Alpha International has swept past the competition with its customer-focused and forward thinking business approach.

And managing director Ralph Wouters van den Oudenweijer has been there from the very beginning. van den Oudenweijer has been with Alpha since it was created in 1995. At that time, it operated under the umbrella of its sister company Scholten Awater until, in 1997, all its EOS supplies activities were transferred to a separate company.

Today, van den Oudenweijer is managing director of Alpha International, in charge of overseeing and managing the company's European management team.
 

Barely had the ink dried on Ventress's plan for the next few years at the giant contract stationer, when Staples upset the applecart by making a very aggressive and public bid for the Dutch firm. Most analysts believed that Ventress, promoted in October 2007, could be the "execution-driven" man to lead CE out of the profit slump it had suffered towards the end of Frans Koffrie's tumultuous reign.  But the former head of CE Europe may not have the chance to implement his "stand-alone" policy which he believes is the "best way to improve shareholder value", despite twice rebuffing the Staples bid. The firm's AGM, which takes place in April, will be make or break for Ventress as he tries to repel sell-happy investment firms and save his job. 

OTTO Office is part of the Otto Group, the Germany-based biggest mail order operator in the world. First launched as OTTO Büro & Technik in 1994 as part of the group's diversification strategy, general manager Roy Vieregge has been credited with playing a considerable part in establishing and expanding OTTO in Germany and beyond.

And further internationalisation is clearly on the agenda. Last September, OTTO Office Belgium launched with a catalogue as well as an internet presence. Today, the company is active in nine European countries, reaching from Slovakia and the Czech Republic to Spain, France and Benelux.
 

A network of more than 1,000 franchises ensures distribution of Buffetti products throughout Italy with a smaller range of office products sold in 2,500 independent office supply stores under the Flex brand. In total, Buffetti offers more than 6,000 products in four categories: business solutions, office products, consumer information technologies and telephony. The firm also sells its products directly to end users through its Buffetti Direct channel. Villa has been in charge with Ermanno Paini since his move from Spicers in April 2006. Villa will also be acting as moderator at OPI Europe 2008 in May. 

Waser Group is one of Switzerland's dominant OP players, competing head on with the likes of Lyreco and B2B mail order player iba with its Waser Büro B2B operation. Its 2007 revenues are expected to be in the region of CHF75 million ($75.2 million). The company is led by CEO Heinz Waser, now the sole proprietor of the firm who has been active in the family business since 1985 and served in all manner of management positions and initiated and implementing an array of partnerships, joint ventures and acquisitions.  

Philippe Weber has been responsible for running Lyreco's key French contract business since 2003. With a turnover of just under €500 million ($750 million) France accounts for around 25 percent of all Lyreco's sales and has traditionally been the company's largest market. However, Weber is now looking warily over his shoulder as the company's UK business, with 23 percent of group sales, closes in.  

With a turnover of £190 million ($377 million), Whiteway is the head of the UK's largest independent office supplies reseller. It is the market leading supplier to the UK legal and professional services sector. With its head office in Croydon, OyezStraker has 14 warehouses and 18 sales depots, servicing the firm's customer base of over 25,000 firms from a staff of 1,150 people across the country. In April, Whiteway was pleased to announce that private equity firm ABN AMRO would be taking a £41.2 million majority stake in the business after a long negotiation process.  

Hungary's largest wholesaler and distributor continues to develop its national and international operations. 2007 sales increased to around €34 million ($50 million) and the company is also very encouraged by the first year of its wholesaling activity in Slovakia which began last April.

The combined Corwell Dealer Days and Corwell Expo event is growing each year and exhibitor numbers for the 2008 event at the end of May have increased to almost 40, including 3M, Epson, Fellowes, Henkel, Imation and Xerox.
 

As with China, Staples beat its main rivals to entering the $10 billion dollar Indian OP market when it tied up a joint venture agreement with major retail group Pantaloon at the beginning of 2007. Staples has a 37.5 percent stake in the business through its Hong Kong-based Asian investment arm. Pantaloon Retail's CEO Rakesh Biyani has said that his group intends to invest around $60 million in the business by 2010 and he is targeting 50 large format stores and 100 store-in-store locations by then with projected sales of $150 million.

The contract business, which already has a presence in nine Indian cities, was also boosted by the acquisition early in 2007 of online B2B suppler Officedge, whose founder Shailesh Karwa now holds the co-CEO post at Staples Future Office.
 

Dilip Dandekar's family has a rich history in the Indian stationery and art market dating back to 1931 when it began its Camel Ink brand. The company name Camlin was adopted in 1946 and derives from the two words 'camel' and 'ink'.

Today the company is a major manufacturer and wholesaler of art materials and stationery products with annual sales in excess of $45 million in 2007, up by over 16 percent on the previous year. Camlin's presence and reputation in India prompted UK-based ColArt to establish a major marketing alliance in 2006.
 

Akira Ito has been at the helm of the century-old Japanese stationery giant for the last two years, maintaining the company's principle of offering the most innovative, distinctive and quality crafted office, art and school supplies available. In its home market the Ito-Ya name is a real icon, with its flagship store in the trendy shopping area of Ginza being the place to purchase stationery and craft supplies in Tokyo, and it has become something of a tourist attraction for foreigners as well. The store spans three separate buildings and its 16 floors stock a staggering 150,000 different items. There are also 10 more Ito-Ya stores in other well-to-do areas of the city. 

Japanese wholesaler and office products supplier Askul looks set to record some impressive sales and profits figures in 2008, buoyed by the continued recovery of the Japanese economy and improving corporate performance in the first half of the year. Under Shoichiro Iwata's reign the group is on course to achieve sales of ¥193 billion ($1.96 billion) this year, up by 10 percent on 2007, while half-yearly operating income jumped by over 75 percent to ¥7.6 billion, and Iwata is confident that the yearly targets will be reached despite uncertainties over the future of the economy due to rising costs and the fallout of US sub-prime problems.

In terms of infrastructure investment, the Sendai Demand Management Centre (Sendai DMC), a new distribution centre which Askul had been working on for some time, began operations in August.
 

Staples' Chinese operations have gone from strength to strength under the stewardship of Jeff Jin since the US giant first formed a joint venture with Jin's OA365 business back in 2004.

Staples China sales more than doubled in 2007 to over $200 million and Ron Sargent's 2006 prediction that sales in China would reach $1 billion within five years looks set to be achieved if the current growth rate continues.

Jin has had a busy year as Staples expanded its presence in China through a joint venture with Peipei, the largest office products retailer in the Jiangsu province.
 

Now in his fourth year in China, the talented Dane Kristiansen is gradually making progress in the notoriously tricky region. Lyreco has operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and Australia and is now seeing more sustainable growth in markets it has most recently moved into, including South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. China however continues to elude Lyreco despite Kristiansen's base in vibrant Shanghai - it seems the company doesn't believe the Chinese corporate consumer is ready for Lyreco's range of services and the associated costs. It's also unlikely that Lyreco will spare his ability away from its European HQ for another four years. Having already managed the firm's European subsidairies, it is difficult to guess what Kristiansen's next role might be other than one day stepping into the mighty shoes of boss Eric Bigeard.

Kristiansen boosted his already high profile in the area by hosting OPI's Chinese Office Products Awards 2007 in November.
 

Tim Liu has been running Office Depot's fledgling China operations since the acquisition of established B2B business AsiaEC at the end of 2006. While Depot will not give any specific figures about its sales in China, it says that the business is growing rapidly off a small base. With its headquarters in Beijing, Office Depot China has been expanding its reach over the last 12 months, opening offices in Shenzhen, Tianjin and Wuxi to bring the total number of branches to six. This strategy looks set to continue as Depot tries to make up for the two-year head start in the market that is enjoyed by rivals Staples.  

David Armstrong took over the running of OfficeMax's Australasian operations in 2007. The company has ten distribution centres in Australia and four in New Zealand, and also operates 27 stores as part of its contract business, seven in Australia and 20 in New Zealand. The company has already diversified into the school and educational market and publishes a back-to-school catalogue, and is now looking to expand its range of surgical and medical products for the healthcare market.

In August 2007, OfficeMax Australia made the headlines after signing a AUS$30 million ($28 million) five-year contract for the provision of office supplies to the Australian government.
 

With 170 outlets across Australia and a combined turnover of AU$500 million ($455 million), Office National is the largest the independent dealer group in Australasia. Boath was named CEO in August 2007 and brought with him a solid and extensive background working in both the B2C and B2B markets with national and local cooperatives and internationally listed blue-chip multinationals. He was instrumental in the restructuring of almost 1,000 independent dairy product distributors into a professional franchise model. More recently he was involved with the establishing of various business infrastructure models in the food industry in Australia and South East Asia. Boath has demonstrated a passion for the group's independent ethic and a commitment to realising the potential of Office National and its JV with New Zealand's Office Products Depot business. 

A Corporate Express employee for 12 years, Harrod has been in the hot seat since 2002, showing a steady hand throughout his reign. His bosses would have been pleased with five percent organic growth in the region over 2007, level pegging with the firm's European division, with strong performers being jan/san and the educational supplies company Educational Experience purchased in 2006. Corporate Express Australia has said that it is looking to make some acquisitions in 2008 and Harrod has revealed plans to broaden its successful private label range. 

The Warehouse Group is New Zealand's largest publicly-traded retailer with 2007 annual sales of NZ$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion). It has been the subject of much takeover speculation recently from rivals Woolworths and Foodstuffs who both hold a 10 percent stake in the group, though after much legal wrangling and intervention from the New Zealand competition authorities, all parties have agreed to suspend talk of a possible takeover until May. Warehouse's 128-store retail operations include 43 Warehouse Stationery outlets, known locally as "Blue Sheds". In 2007, Warehouse Stationery generated sales of NZ$213.5 million, but recently suffered a blip after the implementation of a new centralised distribution centre was blamed for a 7.7 percent drop in same store Q1 sales. There was an improvement in the second quarter, but half-year same store sales were still down by 1.8 percent, a performance which CEO Ian Morrice described as "below par". Looking forward, Warehouse Stationery is planning to increase its number of megastores and to further develop its contract business which began in 2001. 

Mark Ward comes into this industry with a formidable challenge - to integrate Australian OP superstore chain Officeworks into finance and industry conglomerate Wesfarmers while at the same time preparing for the onslaught of a first-ever superstore rival in the market in the guise of Harvey Norman's Ofis store chain.

A new entrant to OPI's Top 100, Ward has plenty of experience in the retail sector, having worked in the home improvement industry for the past 30 years.

Before being appointed managing director of Officeworks last November, Ward was general manager of Bunnings' Australian operations.

With 114 Officeworks stores across the country, the chain is now part of Wesfarmers' Home Improvement and Office Supplies Division. Harris Technology, a chain of 12 stores that operates as a specialist computer supplier to businesses and consumers, is also part of that division. Rather than creating a conflict of interest, however, Ward believes that Officeworks and Harris Technology complement each other in the market.
 

One of the longest-serving employees in the industry, Farrell has been with South Africa's largest stationery and office equipment firm for over 30 years.

In 1997, Waltons became a member of the Bidvest Group, one of South Africa's top five largest companies, which lists rival firm Kolok on its books. In 2006, Waltons entered into a strategic alliance with Lyreco.
 

Hoshan Pan Gulf (HPG) is a familiar feature in the Top 100, but Nabil Saab is a new face in these pages. That's not to say he's new to HPG, however. Saab has been working for the company for the past 30 years and is now general manager of the group.

Greek-Lebanese Saab's objective is to meet the expectations of its customers, suppliers and employees while at the same time staying profitable and growing the company. He works closely with teams in the company's marketing, sales, IT, logistics and production departments to ensure that all its efforts are directed towards that objective.

HPG and its subsidiary Clips Office Supplies distribute office and school products throughout the Middle East and Africa. The company is privately-owned, employs more than 500 people, operates from 15 distribution centres and sells into 30 countries.

Primarily a wholesaler distributing to office products dealers and retailers, copy centres, bookstores, hypermarkets and supermarkets, HPG represents many global manufacturers, and offers an impressive portfolio of brands and close to 20,000 SKUs.

The company recently completed the implementation of the SAP system, and is looking into more enhancements to seamlessly connect all its channel partners as well as end users in an efficient chain.
 

 

Kolok's managing director since 1995, Thompson has been busy over the past 12 months finishing the relocation of its Eastern and Western Cape distribution centres, increasing its capacity country wide by more than 150 percent on its 2005 capabilities.

The firm, which mainly distributes computer consumables, printer and data media supplies, also opened a new distribution centre and sales office in Nelspruit on the eastern border, to assist in capturing business in Mozambique. The warehouse growth strategy will continue throughout 2008, with two new warehouses opening soon. Thompson also oversaw the implementation of the Microsoft AX ERP solution with the Manhattan ILS warehouse software in Kolok's Johannesburg operation, with further rollouts to all other branches planned during the rest of the year.
 

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