Shredders and Shredding - a Brief Guide

This video is a quick and easy to follow animation taking you through:

1. Different types of shredders;
2. Some additional things to consider when buying a shredder;
3. Auto Feed;
4. Maintenance;
5. How to Clear a Paper Jam

Managing Your Office Supplies Spend - a Simple Check List

There Are a Lot of Office Necessities, But Are You Wasting Money on Your Office Supplies?

Whether it’s stationery, furniture, office machines, paper, accessories or just the tea and coffee in your office kitchen, it can be hard to keep track of all the supplies you need to keep your office going.

This stuff is as basic to your office as lighting, heating and having air to breathe, so it can be hard to keep an eye what your business is spending.

Why does this matter? It’s only a few pens and pencils, right?

Not necessarily – like a lot of businesses, you could be spending far more than you need to. Precisely because many businesses don’t see office supplies a significant overhead, they don’t regulate their spending particularly closely. Office supplies can easily become a big hidden cost in your business.

If employees want to order in a few extra toner cartridges, so be it. An extra tin of coffee or two for the kitchen? Where’s the harm in that? If the warehouse manager wants to keep a stock of health & safety notices ‘just in case’ they are needed, what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is, it soon mounts up.

What’s the real story?

Tracking and managing office supplies might seem to be a challenge, but only because it’s one of those things that tends to get forgotten about in a lot of businesses. The good news is, it is reasonably easy to get a grip of the expenditure. Like a lot of things in life, it’s a matter of applying common sense.

Just run through the checklist of ten simple questions below:

1.       What items do I need to keep in stock at all times? (What are the basic requirements that I need to have to ‘keep the trains running on time’?)

2.       How much of each item should we keep in stock?

3.       Which department or person is requesting this item, and how much do they need?

4.       What is the purpose for the request? (Think about the example above of the warehouse manager ordering H&S signs ‘just in case’).

5.       What is the urgency?

6.       How reliable is the supplier?

7.       Have we benchmarked the costs?

8.       Can I get this on a next day delivery if it becomes urgent?

9.       Have I received it and, if so, when?

10.   Was it out of stock, do I need to reorder it, is there a reasonable substitute that will do the job, or can I go without?

The bottom line:

Getting started on the questions above might seem difficult. How do you even answer question one?

After all, as we said earlier, ‘Office Supplies’ is a broad church covering almost everything you use on a daily basis in your business. From wastebaskets and filing cabinets, through kitchen and janitorial supplies, to paper, pens and pencils; almost all of the stuff you need to keep your business running comes under the heading of ‘Office Supplies’.

But if you compile a simple office supply checklist (and keep reading, because we have got something FREE that can help get you started), you can track what your business is buying, and start to see trends of how often items are being ordered.

When you have done that, you can start to drill into the information and use it to manage your capital spend and your stockholding more effectively.

·       Are you seeing waste?

·       Could you even have a theft problem?

·       Are you stocking the right amounts? You may have too much of some items and not enough of others.

You can track whether you are receiving all the items you order. You can identify if you are having a problem with your supplier, including seeing how long it takes for an order to arrive. Then you can start to buy smarter – for example, if your supplier can get stock to you quickly and efficiently, do you need to keep as much in stock? You may want to reduce your stock holding on some items, unless there is a cost advantage to ordering in bulk.

Here’s the deal:

To get you started Office Prime Supplies have produced a FREE officesupply checklist in a simple adaptable template. The link takes you to the document which you can download in Excel; a nice, clear, easily adjustable, and printable format. It’s ready populated with 440 commonly-ordered products.

Okay, it’s not rocket science, but it helps to get you going. The Excel document is only an example. It’s intended to be a useful base that you can build upon so adapt it or come up with your own. Just download it and edit it for your business’ specific needs.

Other things to consider:

You may want a manager’s signature for approval and date line at the top or the bottom of the final form if management approval is part of your process (and if it isn’t, maybe it should be?)

Of course, if you open an account with Office Prime Supplies we can help you with this.

Our simple, secure online account ordering structure allows you to set user access privileges for your employees. You can give some people in your organisation the ability to create an order, but not the authority to place that order. Very simply, the order will go to you or to a user you appoint (like a buyer or someone in your finance team) to be authorised before it is submitted to us as your supplier.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

My New Boss Has No Concept of Work-Life Balance

First posted on LinkedIn

Like the headline says, I have a new boss. Frankly he’s a nightmare to work for.  

He has absolutely no concept of work-life balance. I’m expected to work at strange times of the day and night. The hours are not only irregular they are long, and he won’t tolerate anything but my best work.

I would go so far as to say that my new boss is the most challenging person I have ever worked for and trust me, after a long time spent working at senior exec level in some demanding corporate environments that is really saying something.

That’s right, you guessed it.

Ever since the 1st of June this year, I have been working for myself.

I’ve always enjoyed my career. I have always enjoyed work. Some call me a workaholic, which I take as a compliment. I have been privileged to be constantly engaged and challenged in some exceptional roles.

Highlights included Bargain Booze, which I joined in a marketing role in late ’99. I co-led the private-equity-backed MBO of that company in 2005/6, and eventually left in 2012 before the business floated. Later, after doing my Masters and an interim project for Costcutter, in early 2014 I joined the 120+ year old stationery and office supplies chain Ryman.

During the last couple of decades I have worked with some great people and I have covered a wide range of functional disciplines. Marketer, retail operations, sales, call centre director, MD, COO … But the roles I have had can basically be boiled down to being a retailer (running large estates of small stores) and to being a business-to-business supplier (from my days managing hundreds of franchisee relationships within the Bargain Booze business right through to my time directing the development of a direct Office Supplies business for Ryman).

And whether I was dealing with consumers on the high street or business customers, experience has repeatedly reinforced one lesson - customer experience means everything.

"The customer is king/ queen" is a cliché, but it’s true. And there are a bunch of other truisms that -for me personally- come under the umbrella of putting the customer first.  

Here’s my top ten:

1.      The customers’ experiences should reflect you, your business, and your brand.

2.      Build a product or service that you would like to buy. If you believe in it, are passionate about it, and you are proud of it then the chances are you will succeed.

3.      Keep it simple – you know what your customers want and what they need. Give it to them, and charge a fair price. Everyone is happy.

4.      User experience drives advocacy … Deliver a good customer experience and people sing your praises. Advocates are the best marketing tool a business can have.

5.      The ‘hard sell’ approach might get you a sale, but it doesn’t win you a customer.

6.      Treat people (customers and colleagues) the way you would like to be treated.

7.      Always be fair. Respect, courtesy, and keeping your promises all go a long way.

8.      Business is about people. If you don’t like people, you shouldn’t be in business.

9.      Nice guys do not finish last. People buy from people and if you are fundamentally a decent person, that will help you to build long-lasting and mutually-rewarding relationships.

10.  You could be unfair to a customer for short-term gain, once. Maybe twice. But if you do, they will never shop with you again. On the other hand, a partnership based on mutual benefits can last a lifetime.

These aren’t just words, they are the way I like to conduct myself in life and in business. These are my personal values. So, after 18 years of working for other people, I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is, take the plunge, and try my hand at running my own business.

And yes, as I said in the opening paragraphs above I am perhaps a bit demanding to work for right now. But, here’s the secret…

…I am having an absolute ball, and I am proud to say that the business that I am building is one that can absolutely deliver on the kind of customer-focused ethos that I’ve described above.

Having left my previous role on the 31st of May, I was able to ‘soft launch’ my new website on the 30th of June, just four weeks' later. The first part of July has been spent on a bit of tidying up, some bug fixing, and adjusting content, and now the site is ready to start taking orders.

If you would like to know a little more about the business it is called Office Prime Supplies, and you can visit us now at www.officeprimesupplies.co.uk

We cater mainly for small-to medium-sized businesses, home workers, and the public sector, but anyone can take advantage of our fantastic product range – there are over 20,000 products available on the site and if you cannot find what you want, let me know personally, because I can probably find a source of supply and get it for you.

If you would like me to take a look at your office products expenditure to see if, with my low overheads, I can match or beat your current pricing then feel free to contact me at matthew@officeprimesupplies.co.uk