Proficiency Index

Proficiency Index
2012 Winning Webstores

3 steps to web
user-friendliness

Are resellers making progress
v best practice e.g. Shoplet

21 May’12 (Complete)

How long do users stay on webstores? Seconds unless the home page is refreshed with new information, new products or special offers…daily. This is a prelude to the 2012 Winning Webstore review...Round 1 results are complete

Read more: Proficiency Index - Winning Webstore 2012 Review

Masters of
reinvention

10 leading OPS companies
that sustained brand integrity

3 May'12 (Complete)

Only 13% of Fortune 500 companies in 1995 have maintained their status. Companies that don’t change get left behind. Here are 10 that reinvented, and 10 that haven’t…

Read more: 10 Masters of reinvention

Proficiency Index

Brand standing
champions 2012

Most associate brand with

product. Top brands stand

for memorable experience

22 Apr’12 (Updated)

Branding’s big guns like Coca Cola stand for happiness; Nike for can-do attitude. Here are 12 OPS brands that stand for productivity experiences…

Read more: Brand Standing Champions 2012

Sustainability
Superstars’12

It’s Earth Day on 22 April. We
highlight the industry’s greenest

18 Apr’12

To commemorate Earth Day on 22 April many leading business magazines are profiling sustainability shakers and movers from the corporate world. With due respect to leaders like Dell, Brother, HP and Staples we profile 12 superstars of sustainability in the independent OPS marketplace....

Read more: Sustainability Superstars 2012

Proficiency Index

12 Rising Star
Resellers 2012

OPS progressives to watch

12 Jan'12 (Complete)

The top trend throughout the turbulent 2011 was the rise and rise of the new office productivity services resellers. Expect these double-digit dynamos to shine in 2012...

Read more: 12 Rising Star resellers for 2012

Bigbox stockwatch 2011

Massmarketers
maul OP bigboxes

Amazing Amazon triple sales in
4 yrs; Depot & Max marginalized

4 Jan’12

We continue to review the sales and stockmarket performance of the OP bigbox players against their massmarket rivals. The comparative results continued to make depressing reading for Office Depot or OfficeMax stakeholders...

Read more: Bigbox Stockwatch 2011 Review

1980-90’s v 2011 class compared
Top OPS Resellers League Table

S u p e r d e a l e r
Superstars surge...

Leaders... rising stars…drop-outs
... 2020 top tips... 80/90's comps.

2 Jan’12 (Updated)

The bigbox share of the US-UK markets tumbled again in 2011. OfficeMax, Office Depot and Staples have now lost an estimated $11Bn in sales over the past 4 years. Progressive independent resellers and massmarketers continued to gain market share...

Read more: Superdealer Superstars - 80-90's v 2011

Proficiency Index Awards

Review of 2011:
Best Performers

Best Leaders-Best Marketers 
Best Products-Best Webstore 
Best Productivity-Sustainabilty

28 Dec’11 (Updated)

This year built on 2010  as a base year of recovery and discovery; a year of tech-refresh and mobile optimised webstores; the industry got leaner, cleaner and greener.

The Proficiency Index review of the best performers is published here now, with awards in each category announced shortly...

Read more: Review of 2011 Best Performers

Christmas Crackers;
Top Turkeys 2011

A look back at a turbulent and
transformative year of progress

23 Dec’11 (Completed 1900GMT; 1400ET))
2011 will go down as a miserable year for the ‘turkeys’ citing 'macro-economic-headwinds' as their cause of failure. For progressives, it’s been a cracking year of growth…

Read more: 2011 Christmas Crackers & Turkeys

Most Innovative
Products of 2011

New technology and managed
services boost productivity drive

23 Dec’11

2011 was a phenomenal year for innovation with new products and services arriving to help people in business save time, money and space…later today

Read more: Most Innovative Products in 2011

OPS Reseller Review

The Productivity
Champions 2011

The new growth progressives
lead the lean league of resellers

19 Dec’11 (Complete)

Read more: Proficiency Index - 2011 Productivity Champions

Does your brand image inspire women users?

Is the look: lighter, brighter, whiter... and memorable?

21 Nov'11 (Updated)

Last year we attracted an impressive number of entries from US and UK resellers to our annual Reseller Brand Design Review. We invite resellers to submit by email, their brand image, logos, and webstore fronts before 30 November. The Proficiency Index team, will first assess and review the logos and web presence of the 12 resellers on the left...later today

Read more: Reseller Brand Design Review - 2011

The Top 10 OPS great market

Game Changers

The champions of reinvention.
Plus, the new growth generators

9 Nov’11 (Updated)

There has been a lot of loose talk about game changing events and people recently. We review the last 30 years and highlight the best…to be completed today

Read more: The Top 10 Game Changers

Proficiency Index Poll

Top 20 Women
OPS marketers

Nominations closed. List finalised.

Top 10 leaders named + profiles

9 Nov‘11 (Updated)
Fortune magazine recently published their lists of the most powerful women in business. As in 2010, we wanted to recognize the top female marketers and business leaders that are driving the industry’s transformation from box-shifters to productivity service providers.

Read more: Top 20 Women OPS marketers/leaders

Proficiency Index Poll

40 under 40

Nominations flood in the

top talent in the OPS market

29 Oct’11 (Updated)

Last year we launched the first Proficiency Index ’40 under 40’ identifying the rising stars of the OPS market place. This hugely popular feature has attracted hundreds of nominations this year. Nominations are all in, results announced on 2 Nov'11

Read more: Proficiency Index Poll - 40 under 40

Proficiency Index

Top 50 Fastest
Growing Resellers

Part 2: stars with $5m-$20m sales
and a progressive OPS agenda

8 Oct’11 (Updated)

We have now listed the double-digit dynamos with sales over $20m we followed up by the Top 25 in the US and UK. The UK profiles will be completed this weekend...

Read more: TOP 50 Fastest Growing Resellers - Part 2 Over $5m sales

Proficiency Index

Fastest Growing Resellers 2011

Independents

have  i g n i t i o n!

Part 1: Top 25 over $20m sales
The OPS market dynamic forces

1 Oct'11 (Complete)

Fortune magazine recently published its Fastest Growing Companies list, so we thought we’d publish a similar list for the dynamos in the OPS marketplace. We publish the Top 25 with sales over $20m with pictures and commentary

Read more: Proficiency Index = Top 50 Fastest Growing Resellers

Proficiency Index
Bigbox Webwatch 2011

Massmarketers
m o b i l i z e d !

How they compare with OP
bigboxes and indies’ best?

14 Sep’11 (Updated)
Sorry, it was worthy waiting for! Today we publish a full comparative review of massmarketers’ webstore user-friendliness. From Amazon to Staples; Depot to Target; Costco to Tesco; Best Buy to Wal-Mart; Max to Sainsbury’s.

Read more: Bigbox Webwatch 2011 - Massmarketers mobilised

Proficiency Index
2011 WebWatch – 3rd Round

Winning webstores

How does your business supplies
webstore compare with the best?

28 Aug’11
Women in business make over 80%+ of business supply decisions; 75%+ of women want to buy via Amazon-type webstores. To date only 13 of the best US/UK resellers match up. We report our 3^rd Round review and list the overall 2011 YTD leaderboard...

Read more: Winning webstores 2011 - Round 3

Proficiency Index

Popularity Poll

An OPS comparative analysis…
from Post-Its to headsets to iPads

22 Aug’11 (Updated)

The current Business Week magazine (15-28 August) features a review of what’s most popular in the world today. We conduct our own review of what’s hot in the Office Productivity Services (OPS) marketplace. We welcome your nominations and views please…

Read more: Popularity Poll