Final word with Thomas Schinkel
With Staples and Office Depot shedding large chunks of their global operations, last year was a tipping point for an industry that is changing fast. Business valuations have dropped down to less than 20%...
5 mins with… Steffie Verbeek
What’s your life philosophy? In the end, everything will work out for the best.What’s your most prized possession? I’d prefer not to refer to them as ‘possessions’, but my two children are the most important ‘things’...
Event: NAOPA preview
Over the past eight years, the North American Office Products Awards (NAOPA) have become a not-to-be-missed feature in the US business supplies sector’s calendar. This year’s NAOPA will again be hosted during SP Richards’ (SPR)...
Event: ABC preview
Everything in the business supplies industry today centres around change. Whether you talk about evolution, revolution or indeed complete transformation, only those independent dealers that keep their eye firmly on the prize – the...
Category Update: Shades of grey
The topic of the traditional OP category draws diverse opinions. Some view the sector to be in terminal decline, while others will tell you it’s in a robust state of health. Is it possible...
Category Update: Seeing is believing
It’s been another excellent year for the visual communications (viscom) category. Some of the sector’s largest players are sounding particularly confident, with sales figures soaring to new heights. Reports suggest this is driven, in...
How To… The importance of succession
Have you started thinking about retirement yet – days playing golf or reading a bestseller by the pool? If you’re anything like 75% of small business owners, you don’t have a plan that is...
Spotlight: Being good isn’t always easy
It would be very easy to just write about Commercial Group’s environmental and social achievements. Like the carbon emissions we’ve eradicated through investing in a green delivery fleet or the disadvantaged people whose lives...
Hot Topic: Friend or foe?
There have always been investments, deals, mergers and acquisitions and money floating around the office products industry. While the 1990s and early-2000s were a frenzy of acquisitions and consolidation, the 2007 financial crisis ushered...
Big Interview: Running like clockwork
It’s been ten years since OPI’s Heike Dieckmann interviewed Peter Basci, then CEO of Swiss reseller iba. When Basci sold iba – created by his father Ilo in 1939 – to Swiss giant Migros...
Comment June 2017
Last month we took an in-depth look at Australia and the various things happening there. And while there’s still plenty of unfinished business, of course, the Platinum Equity/Staples deal has now gone through. Platinum buying...
Digital issue June 2017
To view a flip version of the June 2017 issue of OPI magazine please click the links below.Type A – Europe & UKType B – North America and ROWThe new OPI magazine app is published. Please click on...
