2020s Business
Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Zoom, Shopify, Uber & Salesforce have M-powered a new entrepreneurial revolution with affordable personal tech & immediate delivery services. Covid accelerated the advance of 2025 trends: #Paperless #Officeless #Touchless #Spotless #Bigless #Wasteless & #Carbonless. WFH told us to connect with users by providing personalised productivity services + integrated same-day delivery. We guide on how dealers can take charge of their destiny? New Report inc. 2020 Market Review published today
Power Productivity
What will happen in 2021 with Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Staples, Essendant, Shopify, SPR, Alibaba, Depot, WBMason, HP, U-Line, Imperial, EVO-VOW, Westcoast, Bunzl, Brady, independent dealers, dealer groups, wholesalers, furnituremakers, paper-printermakers, MPS, OP makers; foodservice; hygiene suppliers; packaging; AI, robotics,Tech/cybersecurity; Hybrid-WFH; B2U v B2B marketing trends. PP's 21 predictions updated
Top Resellers Review
The bigbox share of the market tumbled again in 2020. Disintegrating Depot & stalled Staples lost another $2Bn sales as Amazon's growth rocketed. Progressive indie resellers, MSP's got hammered on OP/MPS & furniture, but their agility enabled to pivot to Hygiene-PPE and service their local WFH market. Updated
Best Performers
The #OPocalypse aka perfect storm that impacted the office supply market in 2019, got worse in 2020, with the devastating effect of the Covid catastrophe. Even progressive broadline business suppliers suffered, but escaped with a rapid pivot to PPE-Hygiene-WFH 'essentials' e.g. Amazon, P&G, Lenovo. Proficiency Index reviewsbest performers in each category. Complete
F r o s t B i t e s
This has been a crazy, tragic year for the business supply market. Every cloud has a silver lining. We believe major 2020's trends have accelerated towards a better World: inc. #Paperless #Officeless #Touchless #Spotless #Bigless #Wasteless #Carbonless etc.
Ingram's owner
Global #1 tech wholesaler Ingram Micro has finally been sold to a private equity house after being hawked around since 2018 by desperate Chinese owner HNA Technology. This means that the top 2 wholesalers will be in vulture capitalists hands. Will they invest in growth or more typically 'fail and flip' within 5 years?
Depot's Dance
ODP (aka Office Depot/OfficMax) had another bad year....exacerbated by Covid. CEO Gerry 'Smudger' Smith arrived in Jan'17 with a "transformation" fanfare for selling managed IT services to SMB's. In 4 yrs, Smudger's led a sales sink of 25%; a 50% profits plunge; & a 50% market cap crash to a meagre $1.5Bn. Time's running out for the delusional chief?
Has HP/Apogee's
HP acquired Apogee, UK's largest managed print provider in Aug'18. With corporations in Covid lockdown how badly have managed print volumes been hit and what's the picture going forward? CRN poses the questions to COO Mark Smythe. We analyse & comment
Brady takes top
Brady, a full-line hygiene and foodservice distributor, made its 7th dealer acquisition over the past 2 years in its quest to chase Bunzl, Imperial & CNG. We spoke with CEO Travis Brady about latest plans
AWS: Invent 2020
‘Enterprise customers want to unshackle themselves from the rigid, expensive and brittle monolithic IT stack -- like Oracle, HP or IBM for example,’ says Doug Yeum, Amazon Web Services’ channel chief. He told channel partners at the Invent 2020 event "Together we thrive" before providing 7 valuable takeaways..
Why workplace
The person writing the cheque (e.g. CFO) is still the VIP decision maker when buying technology. "I’m going to make an educated guess that you hate at least some of the tech you use for work" writes Shira Ovide NYTimes 'OnTech' columnist. We discuss...
Slimmed down
HD Supply, a leading US industrial & business supplier reported a commendable recovery from Covid hit decline. CEO Joe D'Angelo
commented on the encouraging results of the mainstream facilities maintenance division recently sold back to Home Depot
Can VC Atlas Lift
LSC Communications has confirmed the completion of its sale to venture capitalist Atlas Holdings. Can the self styled "high performance builder" turnaround the dinosaur OP brands maker in an increasingly paperless market? Or, more likely, when will it strip and sell?
IP elects to exit
International Paper the #1 packaging group is planning to exit its legacy printed papermaking business after 10 years of downsizing resulting from crashing demand. The plan is to spin-off in a management buy out, but like other recent industry 'fire sales', what does the future hold in a dying market...who would buy?
Meaningless
The ad business is overrun with buzzwords and acronyms, and some marketers are saying it’s enough already. Snacks giant Mondelez (Cadbury, Oreo & Ritz) agency Ogilvy is the latest attempt to modernise and twist comms language. We discuss
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