Frost Bites

HP: printing
power failure?

Cash cow droop threatens
future as users shift to digital

By Ben Worthen, Wall Street Journal

14 Feb’12 (Complete)

New CEO Meg Whitman pledged to rebuild HP’s depleted balance sheet. Maybe her priorities should lie with the decline in its most profitable printing division?

Read more: HP: printing power failure?

Will Staples save

desperate Depot?

FTC blocked merger in 1997. Analyst's speculation sparks
new possibilities.

13 Feb’12 (Completed)

Fifteen years ago the FTC blocked the merger of the giant OP bigbox players Staples and Office Depot for competitive reasons. Fast forward 2012: the business supplies market has expanded 3x and Depot is decimated. We revisit the some likely possibilities...

Read more: Will Staples save desperate Depot?

Dealer alert!

Paperless path

to productivity

Paper + ink increase costs.

Technology cuts costs

12 Feb’12 (Complete)

Over 50% of OP dealers’ sales are threatened by the slowdown in demand for paper and ink. This trend will accelerate as OPS resellers succeed with MPS programmes. It’s time to embrace technology...

Read more: Paperless path to productivity

OP Dealer Alert!

Multimedia
moves muted

Progressive marketing initiatives
lack personalization & follow up

12 Feb’12

Independent resellers are starting to use a mix of Facebook, Twitter and emarketing, but a new study says they lag in strategy and effective tactics…

Read more: OPS resellers multimedia marketing moves muted

Tomorrow’s office

Brave new
workplace

Fortune magazine study
takes a look at the future

11 Feb’12

We have been advocating that the workplace of the future will be ‘lighter, brighter and whiter’. Here is another study that reinforces the view…

Read more: Tomorrow's office: Brave new workplace

HP: high pay for
poor performance

All change, but no change

under lame Lane’s leadership

11 Feb’12

It is a new year at HP with a new CEO. But while the board has changed at the tech giant, it continues to make dysfunctional, self-serving, obscene decisions that threaten its future...

Read more: HP: high pay for poor performance

BIGPIG: broken, 
bruised and bereft

Will the redundant buying group
model be disbanded?

9 Feb’12

Last week, the global buying group BPGI, confirmed that CEO Jim Preston was retiring. Could this be the catalyst for a change of agenda or closure?

Read more: BPGI broken and bruised. What now?

Marketing
matters more

Wal-Mart put marketing
under merchandising?

6 Feb’12 (Complete)

Many resellers organize merchandising as part of marketing; others as separate silos; few put marketing below merchandising. What’s best?

Read more: Wal-Mart put marketing under merchandising?

Manufacturers
mess with press

Cohort OPI wrongly publishes
Spicers’ buying terms request

6 Feb’12 (Complete)

Whatever Spicers’ demands were at their recent supplier presentation day, manufacturers were unwise to publicise details with the puppet press…

Read more: Manufacturers mess with press over Spicers

Original brands
o v e r p o w e r
private labels

Manufacturer’s innovation and
marketing outsmart copycats

1 Feb’12 (Complete)

Q4’11 financial results are flooding in for original brand manufacturers and confirm the continuing positive growth trends that emerged in 2011…

Peer power
performance

Is Pinnacle the best practice
model for OPS market success?

30 Jan’12 (Completed)
Pinnacle Affiliates recently added its 20^th member and founding chairman Dave Guernsey handed over his role to Kevin Johnson of Warehouse Direct. We speak to Kevin about the peer group’s plans…

Read more: Peer power performance at Pinnacle

Pricing power
protects margins

The biggest etailers drive market
price changes…every week

28 Jan’12

The biggest etailers changed prices nearly 30 times more often than smaller rivals in 2011...

Read more: Pricing power protects margins

Amazon eats
your lunch…

Bezos reaches the hearts
you can’t reach… with your
‘spray-and-pray’ mailings

23 Jan’12 (Complete)

Next week Amazon is expected to report massive gains in the business supplies marketplace against bigboxes and independents. Most resellers are in denial and don't get Amazon's ability to 'reach the users they can't reach' …

Read more: Amazon eats your lunch

The 10 Brilliant
Brands of 2 0 1 1

Design, innovation and user
friendliness: the keys to success

18 Jan’12 (Complete)

Forget economic conditions. Listening to users, creating new products and services that save time, money and make them feel good, is the winning formula…whenever....

Read more: The 10 Brilliant Brands of 2011

M P S  v  P M S:
what’s the difference?

Managed Print Services v
Print Management Services

By Caroline McCormack,

17 Jan’12

Although they sound the same and are often used in the same context; they are in fact very different from each other. Here’s how?

Read more: MPS v PMS: what's the difference

B r a n d s that
bombed in 2011

Leaders that lapsed through
lack of listening to customers

16 Jan’12 (Complete)

Yes 2011 was a tough and turbulent year, but these 10 brands would have been guilty of self-destructive action in any economy.

Read more: Brands that bombed in 2011

The mobile
imperative

Part 3: This is the year to take
m-commerce very seriously

11 Jan’12

Mobile marketing has come of age thanks to social search, personalised targeting and the ever-growing popularity of smart-phones...

Read more: The mobile imperative - Part 3

TriMega’s
triple spin

OPI's fallibility again exposed
in cloudy Cleary-brainwash call

11 Jan’12
You couldn’t make this up! We just read yesterday’s OPI interview with TriMega’s CEO Charlie Cleary. It was riddled with inaccuracies, hollow spin and unchallenged hyperbole…

Read more: TriMega's triple spin

Creativity to crush

commoditization!

Brands need to embrace innovation and be more enterprising in 2012

10 Jan’12

Marketers have long used logic, data and insights to give their brand a competitive advantage. Will these tools be good enough in future? Creativity will be essential for growth in 2012.

Read more: Creativity to crush commoditization

The OPS market preview

12  P o s i t i v e
Predictions: 2012

Reasons to be cheerful versus
the prevailing gloom and doom

9 Jan’12 (Completed)

Most economic forecasters believe 2012 will be a tough year with business and retail spending constrained by the slowdown in Europe and Asia. We believe the continuing need to drive productivity will be a positive force for growth in the OPS market…

Read more: 12 Positive Predictions for 2012