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?

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...

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...

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…

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…

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...

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?

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?

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…

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…