OPI TALK

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Episodes

Hear the latest news, interviews and analysis from the business supplies industry hosted by OPI, the leading media organisation for the international office products sector.

Episodes

Friday Oct 01, 2021

Navigating South Africa’s choppy waters

Friday Oct 01, 2021

Economic problems, social unrest, spiralling unemployment, corruption scandals, and then COVID. You might be forgiven for thinking that running a business supplies dealer group in South Africa was a thankless task.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Dealer marketing organisation Inovocom has come through the pandemic with the vast majority of its larger members still up and running and adapting to the ‘new normal’.

In this episode of OPI Talk, Inovocom’s co-founder and Director Craig Noyle provides a great overview of the trading context in South Africa, and how his group and its members are rising to the challenge.

Episode produced by Andy Braithwaite
Music by:
Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r...
Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

Friday Sep 24, 2021

Office coffee and hybrid working

Friday Sep 24, 2021

OPI Talk speaks with Beth Langley, Out-of-Home Director for Nespresso Professional in the UK & Ireland.

Beth Langley joined Nespresso Professional at the beginning of 2021 – certainly an ‘interesting’ time for the away-from-home coffee segment against the backdrop of COVID restrictions and office closures.

The situation is gradually improving, but there are still concerns about the Delta variant which is delaying the return to the office in some places. In addition, what will the hybrid workplace mean for coffee consumption in the office?

In this episode of OPI Talk, Langley discusses Nespresso Professional’s go-to-market strategy in the UK & Ireland and looks at some of the opportunities in the office coffee space: these include evolving consumer tastes, e-commerce sales, co-working and sustainability.

Friday Sep 17, 2021

Collaboration and change with Mike Gentile

Friday Sep 17, 2021

The Big Interview in the special 30^th anniversary issue of OPI – which will be published shortly – is none other than Mike Gentile, CEO of Independent Suppliers Group (ISG), the US’s – and the world’s – largest cooperative for independent resellers in the business supplies community.

In this episode of OPI Talk, you can listen to extracts from that Big Interview, which was conducted by OPI CEO Steve Hilleard.

How has ISG benefitted from the dealer group merger that took place just over two years ago?
How did the group and its members handle the COVID-19 pandemic?
What’s new with ISG’s EPIC Business Essentials national accounts programme?
What does Gentile think about the breadth of product that wholesalers sell into the independent dealer channel?
What could recent developments at the US big-box players mean?

Listen to this podcast to find out the answers to these questions, and more!

And make sure you read the September issue of OPI magazine for the complete interview.

Episode produced by Heike Dieckmann
Music by:
Extreme Energy by MusicToday80: https://soundcloud.com/musictoday80/r...
Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTg

Friday Sep 10, 2021

AOPD members focusing on growth

Friday Sep 10, 2021

With 68 independent dealer members throughout the US, AOPD is an important player in the business products national accounts arena, both for the public and private sectors.

In this episode of OPI Talk, the organisation’s Executive Director Mark Leazer explains how national accounts have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and how his members are now focused on growth as we get into the final stretch of 2021.

"We’ve seen a distinct turnaround beginning in about March 2021"

Friday Sep 03, 2021

Chewing the fat with Bill Cardone

Friday Sep 03, 2021

The Business Solutions Association in the US recently named TOPS Products’ Bill Cardone as this year’s recipient of its Lifetime Achievement award.

Cardone has been involved in business products sales since 1987 and has seen a lot of changes over the decades. One thing that hasn’t changed in all that time is his passion for the industry and its people.

In this episode of OPI Talk, Cardone looks back at some of the people who have inspired him during his career, describes some of the key changes he has seen in the industry and gives his take on the state of the market today.

Friday Aug 27, 2021

Back-to-school 2021 – how’s it shaping up?

Friday Aug 27, 2021

With 2020’s important back-to-school (BTS) season hit by COVID restrictions and school closures, there are hopes that 2021 will see something of a return to normal. Whether that will now be the case – as the Delta variant spreads in the US – remains to be seen.

Yet, as NPD analyst Leen Nsouli explains in this episode of OPI Talk, the numbers up until the middle of August have been encouraging. She provides details on some of the key category trends, talks about retail versus online and looks at some of the factors that are impacting BTS spending this year.

Friday Aug 20, 2021

Messe Frankfurt gearing up for in-person trade shows

Friday Aug 20, 2021

With Paperworld set to return as a physical event in January 2022, OPI catches up with Messe Frankfurt’s Julia Uherek.

You don’t need us to tell you that the business products events calendar has been turned on its head by COVID.

One company that has been in the firing line is Messe Frankfurt, organiser of the Paperworld brand of shows around the world. However, after months of Zoom and Teams calls and online events, we are slowly starting to see a return to in-person conferences and shows.

Our guest on this episode of OPI Talk is Julia Uherek, recently appointed as Vice President of Consumer Goods Fairs at Messe Frankfurt. She talks about how Messe Frankfurt has been coping with the impact of the pandemic, some of its digital initiatives and what we can look forward to at the next Paperworld show in Frankfurt at the end of January 2022.

Friday Aug 13, 2021

S.P. Richards – 12 months on (part 2)

Friday Aug 13, 2021

Tune in to this episode of OPI Talk to hear the second part of our interview with Yancey Jones and Mike Maggio of US wholesaler S.P. Richards (SPR).

Following on from the previous episode, Yancey and Mike talk about how SPR responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and how they are encouraging more diversity at the company. They also give their thoughts on what a merger of the Office Depot and Staples retail networks in the US might mean for the company.

Friday Aug 06, 2021

S.P. Richards – 12 months on (part 1)

Friday Aug 06, 2021

OPI Talk catches up with S.P. Richards’ Mike Maggio and Yancey Jones just over a year after they led the takeover of the US wholesaler.

The first episode of this two-part podcast looks at the progress made on implementing their vision for SPR, the efforts made in moving from a catalogue-based wholesaler to a market-driven distributor and the recent brand refresh.

Look out for part 2 next week.

Friday Jul 30, 2021

One-to-one with ACCO’s Boris Elisman

Friday Jul 30, 2021

As this podcast goes out at the end of July 2021, we are right in the middle of the quarterly earnings reporting season. Many businesses are seeing strong improvements versus last year – when earnings were hit by COVID lockdowns – and one such company is ACCO Brands, where organic growth was more than 20% year on year, with the EMEA region growing by over 50%.

About an hour after ACCO’s analyst conference call had finished, OPI News Editor Andy Braithwaite had the opportunity to speak with CEO Boris Elisman about the company’s results and some of the trends he is seeing.

Topics covered included: taking share in EMEA, Brexit, supply chain issues, back-to-school replenishment, local manufacturing, the recovery in the B2B channel, continued growth in the e-commerce channel, opportunities in the wellness category and learning to live with COVID despite the rise of the Delta variant in many of ACCO’s markets.

All packed into 20 minutes!