The Business Staple

I remember going to a business club a few years ago which catered for new startup businesses and gave them some useful advice on how to start a business. As well as the usual information on how to keep records and accounts, there was also a part about getting your company stationery printed. It was commonplace to order your letterheads, business cards, compliment slips and the dreaded triplicate invoice book.

The reason I mention this, is I was reading an article in the Drum magazine a couple of weeks ago and apparently the stationery market has reduced by half in the last five years. In one way I can see how a lot of business information is sent via the internet using email, social media etc, but I don't know of one company that doesn't still use some sort of headed paper to send out the occasional information.

What has also changed is that you don't tend to bulk order your company stationery like you used to years ago because there are so many printers available today who can get them printed in 24 hours anyway. Plus if you want to change any information such as addresses and phone numbers, you don't want to have reams of paper lying around redundant.

I can also remember giving a lecture about the exciting prospect of the paperless office. No more filing cabinets filled with expandable files because we can now store everything on hard drives or even in a few years we will be able to use online storage. So while we now send invoices and bills via email, how many of these are still printed out onto paper and filed away? It has made little difference to be honest.

The vast majority of us still don't quite trust having a digital copy of something and prefer to have something tangible in our hand instead.

Personally, I like having a letterhead and business card to hand out as it communicates something about your company. The quality of the stock used and the look and feel all help to create a sense of reliability and trust in you as a company and as an individual.

When you take a look at Arjowiggins, the paper manufacturer who is well known for its Conqueror range of papers, they are still managing to return profits in the millions every year.

Also, inevitably, you have to address the issue of recycling. I wasn't aware that you cannot recycle paper completely without having to add some virgin fibre into the mix. So the time will have to come when we have to cut back on our paper consumption and something like an unnecessary letterhead will be one of the first to disappear into history just like newspapers and magazines will eventually.