Page 21 - BOSS Today Issue 21

TIME FOR SOME

CREATIVE

THINKING

K demand for cut office
The growth of Upaper is perhaps regarded installations of sheet-fed office reaching trend: the long-
heralded 'paperless office' was
printers forged ahead.
digitisation and as a barometer of the health of But then - in 2008 - the at last becoming a reality. In
the decline in the traditional office products recession hit, with company addition - as the 2012 MWA/OPI
'Boiling The Frog' research survey
closures, falling employment,
(OP) industry: in recent years,
demand for cut use of cut paper has been an increasing corporate cost saving found, a generation of younger
office paper has important driver (or reflector) initiatives ('Do you really need (under 35) office workers was
emerging that - whatever the
of demand for filing supplies,
to print this e-mail?') and tighter
stimulated some envelopes, printer cartridges budgetary controls (particularly style of working demanded
by their employers - simply
creative thinking, and even writing instruments in the public sector) having an did not see the need to print
immediate negative effect on
and the storage subcategories
as specialist OP of the office furniture market. demand. By 2010, UK volume documents out.
As a result, in recent years
demand for cut office paper was
Having researched the UK OP
market researcher market since the early 1990s, declining by 5% pa. the decline in UK demand
Martin Wilde I recall tracking the growth in The Frog Factor for cut office paper has, if
anything, deepened: paper
demand of cut office paper as
reports... increasing steadily at around Nevertheless, beneath the industry sources are reporting
5-6% year on year in the late economic gloom hid another, that volume demand fell
1990s and early 2000s as the more insidious and further further to between 5-8% pa
February/March 2014 | BOSS TODAY 21

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