Page 23 - BOSS Today Issue 20

and trends in our sector How has the UK OP
have been tough, the 2 market changed in the
Armageddon that last 12 months?
was predicted hasn’t All of the respondents felt
happened.” that the industry was now a
Alan Ball different place to what it was
12 months ago, and that it had
However, beyond this overall accepted that not only were
view, there was no doubt that market conditions changing
the year had seen differing faster than ever before, but
fortunes for traditional product there was also an urgent need
sectors, compared to new to keep pace with this. As noted
product categories: above, this change was partly
manifested in an unmistakeable
“For certain product and irreversible shift away from
sectors (paper, traditional stationery products,
envelopes and due largely to digitisation:
traditional stationery)
it was worse than “There’s been an
expected. For FM accelerated decline
(JanSan) and print in traditional OP. We
management services expected the previous
(PMS) there was an decline to flatten
improvement.” out, but it carried on
Michael Gardner downwards at the same
rate, if not slightly worse.
Furthermore, although some of That surprised me.”
the reasons for this decline were Bob Geens
economic, there were also long
term negative structural factors Secondly, there was an
that were acknowledged to be acknowledgement that 2013
coming into play: was the year in which Amazon
had finally come of age as a
“Digitisation has been major player within the UK OP
a big issue for paper market:
and print cartridge
demand. There have “Amazon have taken
been continued the market by storm.
business failings, and We think they are doing
cost saving measures as much as c£650m
by the corporates (such in OP now, not least
as lowering permission/ because they hold
authorisation levels) 100,000+ SKUs.”
which have suppressed Sean Starkey
demand.”
Sean Starkey

December 2013/January 2014 | BOSS TODAY 23

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