Interview with BPGI’s Barrie Hayes & Quantore’s Arnold Theuws in OPI Magazine
It’s been a busy month for BPGI, here’s an extract from this month’s OPI magazine:
Revamped BPGI looking to the future
Independent dealer purchasing organisation BPGI has announced that Netherlands-based wholesaling and reseller group Quantore is rejoining the consortium following its two-year membership of the Interaction group.
Quantore Managing Director Arnold Theuws commented the fit with Interaction was “good”, but admitted that it “wasn’t optimal”. The group has changed its strategy on private label and Theuws said the focus is now “more on quality and packaging than on price”.
He told OPI: “A key difference for Quantore versus 2014 [when it announced it was leaving BPGI] is that BPGI is creating an environment which recognises working more closely with the other stock-keeping members within the group. Our expectation is that this will allow us to work more closely with like-minded organisations and have more relevant conversations with the vendors.”
With no North American members in BPGI anymore and the Australian/New Zealand groups forming their own purchasing agreement – although Office Brands has also stayed in BPGI – Europe is now its focus. BPGI is now a registered LLP in the UK and has developed an outsourcing arrangement with UK dealer group Integra for various purchasing, administrative and finance functions.
BPGI CEO Barrie Hayes told OPI: “We are adapting what we do for the relevant membership structure, for example with the members that have their own warehouses and distribution. “While pricing is still important, that also means things such as intertrading, looking at buying deals, some private label possibilities and the sharing of best practices.” BPGI acknowledged that it wouldn’t be able to exist without support from its vendor partners. Vendor negotiations that took place in France recently related to contracts for 2018 and 2019.
That relevance will remain as long as the printed catalogue refuses to be killed off. Catalogues are under pressure, but BPGI dealers still distributed about 550,000 of them for the start of 2017. So despite fears a couple of years ago about whether BPGI had a future, Hayes remains bullish, saying that “the curve has turned”.
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OPI Magazine, is available from: https://www.opi.net/