Staples Inc

Staples and Office Depot Inc. are both office supply chains. Today both companies are doing great considering where they came from and their competitive market. It is safe to say Staples has more than 2000 stores while Office Depot has above 1600 stores throughout the world. According to the case they were both originated in 1986 and while being founded early on over the next decade they and additional office supply chains have contended belligerently in order to provide a suitable, unfailing and inexpensive supply of office materials to smaller industries or businesses along with other persons who have home offices. Staples and Office Depot have been extremely victorious in the field of office supplies. They have kicked out hundreds and thousands of individual privately owned businesses out of selling and abolished even few competitors in the office supply market by getting hold of their business or economic failure of their business. By 1996 they had only one existing contestant which even till today I remember and that is OfficeMax. Office Depot has been very insistent, in addition, Staples and OfficeMax are to participate more assertively as well. The office supply prices for staples are the cheapest in the cities that all three of the nationwide office supply chains staples, office depot, and office max compete. Prices reach higher in the markets that only the additional competitor is OfficeMax. Office Depot incriminates drastically with increased prices that comes

stores in the U.K., Middle East, Asia, and Australia. As of January 31, 2005, the company’s total owned and

Therefore this industry is a pretty good one to already be in, but would be very tough to try and break into. Since established firms do not have to worry about threat of entrants or substitution, they can focus on making their core business practices cost efficient and profitable. Although firms have to deal with high buyer and supplier power, every firm has to deal with these issues. Therefore this leaves only rivalry to compete on, which forces firms to stay sharp, observe the competition, and provide excellent service to the firm’s customers to generate profit.

Today’s office superstore industry in the United States provides a convenient one-stop shopping experience for small businesses and individuals with home offices. The main competitors in the industry are Office Depot, Staples, and Office Max. All of them offer a variety of office supplies, as well as computers, office furniture and other business related items.

In 1985, when the founder of Staples, Tom Stemberg, found himself in the middle of a weekend to have to find, not without difficulty, a spare printer ribbon, he devised a system to simplify installation provision of office supplies and reduce prices. It is on the American continent that Staples was created by opening the first supermarket of office supplies in the world. Today, the company has 1,871 retail stores (and outlet). But retail is not the only growing business in the North America. The American direct sales professional division, Staples Advantage is indeed serving small and large companies, while its remote sales activity allows customers to order products anytime, anywhere. The company thus offers thousands of opportunities and a wide variety of developments. Staples is also operating in South America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Today, Staples is no longer limited to simple paper clips and a handful of pens. To become the most reliable desktop solutions provider in the world, the company trusts in each of its employees, the actors most involved in the heart of Staples. The company now operates in three different areas of activity: Retail, direct sales professionals (including via acquisitions as Quill and Corporate Express) and remote

Today the chain of stores span over 500 individual stores in 11 countries across the world, namely (apart from Canada), Brazil, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, New Zealand, United States of America, United Kingdom, France, India, and Singapore.

Staples, as one of the largest retail companies in the US, has experienced low growth rate in recent years. As shown from the historical data in Table 1, the annual real growth rate has been negative since 2010. Specifically, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 1996 to 2016 is 5.66%, while the CAGR from 2006 to 2016 drops to -1.68%, and it decreases further to -7.33% from 2011 to 2016. This obvious comparison indicates that the future of Staples’ sales is not optimistic. Staples is now in the decline stage of its life cycle. The company’s year-over-year growth for each year from 1996 to 2016 is not very constant. In particular, sales growth was about 20% from 1996 to 2000, then it declined to 10% from 2001 to 2009, and declined further

Ten months later Mr. Stemberg opened up Staples Incorporation becoming the first and only office supple store a round. Staples helped make office supplies more accessible an affordable to customers in need of them. It was a one-stop shop for office supplies.

• International Operations:  Products are distributed in New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Introduction Staples is one of the global leader for office supplies. It was founded in 1985 by Tom Stem erg who was a former supermarket chain executive turned entrepreneur. The story of how the office supplies giant was started is pretty inspiring. Tom’s typewriter ribbon broke during one forth of July weekend when most of the stores were closes which encouraged him to come up with a plan to bring these office related supplies to everyone even during the public holidays, as there were no such supermarket serving this purpose during that time.

Staples Inc. was founded in 1985 and was incorporated on January 23, 1986, and has its headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts (Liang, 2012). The company has three principal subdivisions: North American Stores and online, North American Commercial and International Operations encompassing 2000 stores globally in 26 nations. The corporation offers a comprehensive variety of merchandises that include: office provisions, business equipment merchandises and amenities, facility and break room supplies, computers and mobility commodities and workplace fittings under proprietary brands such as Quill and Staples. The enterprise correspondingly affords copying and printing amenities to its wholesale and delivery consumers. It also delivers technological merchandise through its business Easy Tech. West (2014) The company sells its products to the customers through online websites: Staples Express, Staples.com, Staples.ca, USPS and Quill.com and through its retail stores, CRM its contract sales force, and its mail catalog businesses (para. 1).

Staples Incorporated, began in 1985 by founder Tom Stemberg. Tom Stemberg with experience in the supermarket chain eventually became an entrepreneur. Tom wanted to make a local supply store/ stationary store to buy a supply Tom needed, many stores didn’t offer what he desired. The idea then came to him that “The world needed a supermarket for office products” (Stemberg 1985). Staples then became the very first office supply store. The first store was opened May 1, 1986 in Brighton, MA. In the years to come, competition started to arise, in result Staples came up with their very first slogan “Yeah, we’ve got that” this help staples get a lead in the competition with Office Depot, but the slogan that carried them to the

Staples, Inc. became incorporated in 1985 by founders Thomas G. Stemberg and Leo Kahn. 25 years later, Staples, Inc. is the world's largest office products company. The company primarily operates in the United States but also has locations in 26 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia serving businesses of all sizes and consumers. Their mission statement is, “We're committed to making it easy for our customers around the globe to buy a wide range of office products, supplies, technology, furniture, and business services, including computer repair and copying and printing, to help our customers run their offices efficiently” (Staples Inc., 2010).

The changes or forces within the macro-environment is able to alter the competitive structure of an industry (Hill et al., 2015, p. 69). The varying uncertainty of these forces can have definite impacts on the Staples’ competitive structure in forms of opportunities or threats.

From our offices in the United Kingdom, the Middle East and North America, we have forged strong links with leading retail chains. In other markets our extensive network of distributors and agencies supports our commitment to customer service.