12 minute read
Interview
The voice of EXPERIENCE: keep it SIMPLE
In the first of two interviews with much-respected and high-achieving individuals who have shared OPI’s 30-year journey through our industry, Heike Dieckmann speaks to Steve Haworth, CEO of the UK’s EVO Group of Companies
times, having been in some more peripheral verticals where, quite frankly, I could have hidden and just waited for the pension, is hopefully a good example of how special our space is.
As a sector, we are big enough to have scope and scale to be interesting, but small enough to really make a difference.
Being bold and keeping it simple – these are two attributes that have successfully guided Steve Haworth through his long career. And never have these qualities been needed more than now, he says, at a time when our industry is in desperate need of reinvention – and a good dollop of self-confidence.
OPI: You graduated in 1992, just under a year after OPI was born, then joined ISA International which ultimately, many years and iterations later, became part of what’s now the EVO Group of Companies. How would you summarise the past three decades?
Steve Haworth: Loved every minute. Wouldn’t change a thing. Still learning every day. Met some amazing people. These are the good bits.
What distresses me is when we talk our industry, our people and our quality down. We’re as good as anybody else and I think we compare really well with other sectors. The fact that I’ve come back to the heart of this industry three
OPI: What’s your recollection of the major milestones during your career?
SH: The US big boxes coming to Europe in the early to mid-1990s was definitely a big one. It’s probably safe to say they’ve failed in their quest (see also Focus, page 40).
I would go as far as to say that the whole globalisation or pan-Europeanisation of the industry hasn’t really worked. But so many entities going down that path – Spicers is another good example – was certainly another milestone.
I would also highlight the entry into the market of consumables – EOS to begin with – as being massive. And it took us a long time to work out that
consumables can be anything. They aren’t just ink and toner, or indeed office products.
I think we still wrestle with what the definition of our industry is and its constituent parts, in terms of channels and their scope, manufacturers and definitely products. What we so often refer to as ‘adjacent’ categories need not be adjacent at all, they are completely part of what we should sell and be involved in.
Clearly, the entry of Amazon in soft terms – or Amazon Business in hard terms – has been a huge influence. It’s been positive, I would argue, because it forced people to think carefully about e-commerce and all it entailed.
In that same vein and above everything else perhaps, the advancement of technology has shaped our sector. When I started my career in the early 1990s, everything was done on paper record cards – we probably had two or three computers in the entire building at ISA.
Look at where we’re now, most recently exacerbated by COVID-19. Technology progress is inexorable and getting faster and faster.
OPI: You’ve just mentioned the omnipresent COVID. That’s been a real gamechanger for many. Have there been plenty of these ‘bang, out of the blue’ moments in your opinion?
SH: The pace of change from a macro landscape has always been fast, but we seem to have made it gradual because of our inertia and inability to react aggressively. We didn’t have that luxury with the pandemic.
If there’s anything we can learn from big events such as the 2007/2008 financial crisis and now of course COVID-19, it’s that we have to react more dynamically and assertively to change.
If you don’t embrace it, you’re dead, or at the very least struggling. We hear about these examples all the time – Kodak, taxi firms, hotels – they just weren’t quick enough in their thinking and reactions, and the likes of Apple, Uber and Airbnb have been laughing all the way to the bank ever since.
We are a platform to connect any manufacturers or brands with people who want to consume their products, and we do that in a variety of different ways with a variety of different services
It’s been a long, windy road for EVO, charted over the years in OPI and on opi.net
We need new blood and fresh ideas. I look around the room at every event, every conference I attend and every board I sit on, and it’s all the same pale and stale people. That isn’t good for the future of our industry. I guess it depends how you define the ‘industry’.
OPI: What is your definition?
SH: I would define it by the services we provide, not by the products we sell, or the customers or suppliers we deal with. From an EVO perspective, there is simply no limit – we are a platform to
connect any manufacturers or brands with people who want to consume their products, and we do that in a variety of different ways with a variety of different services.
OPI: You’ve just said we needed fresh blood – are there not enough potential new leaders coming through in your opinion?
SH: There are plenty of young leaders coming through, but we need to give them their opportunity and a voice. I don’t think we have enough forums and platforms for these people to make an impact, for instance, especially when they are so guided by how they see the traditional way the industry is being led.
A really balanced approach is needed, with respect to age, gender and all manner of diversity. As an example, BOSS’s Leaders of the Future forum is a fantastic initiative, as is all the work this industry association is doing with promoting women in business. But there needs to be more and we have to engage with it and support it.
OPI: Let’s talk some more about EVO, the model you have and what, as you’ve just said, the company is trying to do. I remember a time when the term ‘conflict of interest’ was looming large over every operator that didn’t follow the straight channel dissection route. Certainly in the developed markets, you were either a wholesaler, a dealer, a contract stationer, etc. Mixing created conflict. Now the lines are blurring for so many – what’s your view on channel conflict?
SH: The importance of this debate subsided years ago. I’m not going to deny the fact that people will say it theoretically still exists, but they quite possibly need a reality check. If we ever needed a real-life example of where having breadth, the ability to work across markets, channels and products has come to the fore, it’s COVID. EVO would not have survived the pandemic without operating a multichannel model. Because we do, we’ve thrived.
EVO’s predecessor Vasanta started with a hybrid model back in 2007. Everything that’s happened since – economic and financial crises, the advent of new technologies, the rise in consumption of certain categories, the decline in others, COVID – has validated the multichannel hybrid model. When sensitively managed and organised, it works well.
Different entities cater well to different audiences, we are very clear on that at EVO. When it comes to dealing with people on a transactional basis, in the local community, there is nobody better at doing it than independent resellers. They need wholesale support.
Who do you most admire in the industry?
Without a shadow of a doubt, a person called Dave West. I worked with him at Pitney Bowes between 2007 and 2009. I’ve never met anyone else with this ability to take what looks like a complicated business model, simplify it and achieve success.
He was an incredibly hard taskmaster, but he was the one person everybody wanted to get a “well done” from because it meant so much when you did.
Best piece of advice?
Again, it goes back to Dave West and I hope it’s rubbed off on me. Keep it simple. The quality of a leader is determined by his/her ability to take complicated things and break them down into their simplest components so they are actionable and measurable. Results will follow.
Steve Haworth before he started his office products career
Proudest moment of your career?
Becoming CEO at EVO, no question. I joined ISA International straight from the jobcentre in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1992. Being asked in 2016 to lead what had become of that business was my proudest moment.
Most difficult business decision?
Specifically, it’s hard to tell people they haven’t got a future in the business because it so directly affects families, lives, etc. More generally speaking, it’s deciding what not to do. You’re often confronted with a sea of opportunity and options, and it’s difficult not to jump on every bandwagon and always focus on the things you should be doing.
Have a strategy, stick to it. If the strategy is wrong, change it. Don’t jump around from one crazy idea to the next.
Favourite office product?
I like a good stapler. But also – evidence of where the industry is headed – my digital to-do list in Microsoft Outlook that I can synchronise with all my devices and keep everything and everyone on task. I should be saying it’s pen and paper, of course, but that wouldn’t be true.
Dream job?
I’ll be honest, when I entered this industry in 1992, it wasn’t my dream to work in telesales at ISA selling telex and fax rolls. I’m a technical linguist. My whole education drove me to be a technical translator and that’s what I wanted to do, specifically in the aerospace industry.
During my first 18 months at ISA, I was still applying within the EU for technical translation jobs in that field. It took me that long to realise I wasn’t good enough. So here we are, nearly 30 years later.
What do you most value about OPI – if anything?
Your ability to bring people together on a truly European and global basis, facilitating meetings with senior executives that you typically wouldn’t get to talk to.
I can give you a very specific example – the OPI European Forum in Berlin in 2019. At that event, I had a chance to meet and talk to Dolph Westerbos. It led to the acquisition of Staples’ book of business in the UK a year later. There are plenty of other things you do very well, but this is definitely the highlight for me.
National independent resellers are brilliant at working with private sector contract customers – fine, we can do that.
One of the biggest missing links we’ve had at EVO up until the transaction with Staples Solutions’ UK business was the consumer market online. We’ve now opened that up. It doesn’t really conflict with the rest of the B2B channels we’re in, but it’s something our manufacturers were desperate for us to do. If we don’t do it for them, they will find somebody else which decreases our relevance.
Staying relevant is so important and it means moving on and trying new things. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for traditions and long-term relationships – they are massively valuable and can never be replaced by anything.
So, having answered your question in a very long-winded way, we don’t speak about conflict anymore, but we are most definitely sensitive to it.
OPI: Let’s look forward. Where are we headed?
SH: We’ve recently had some big catalysts for change – first Brexit, then COVID. I’m the wrong person to comment on Brexit, to be honest, because it’s been brilliant for us. That said, given how long we talked about it before it actually happened, I was shocked by just how unprepared so many companies and individuals were.
As regards COVID, there are a lot of things we changed at EVO and continue to change as a result of the pandemic. But even though we obviously couldn’t predict what was to unfold, none of these things were new, and it’s quite embarrassing from a leadership perspective that it’s taken us so long.
Take Microsoft Teams. We’ve had it for three years, but hadn’t really adopted it. COVID gave us the reason to do so – now we can’t imagine life without it.
All in all, I think there’s never been a bigger opportunity for those who want to grasp it and look forward. By the same token, it’s also a time of huge threats for the zombies who aren’t prepared to come out from under the rock and think differently. The threat is particularly acute now, as government support packages end, loans and debts have to be repaid, and so on.
We need to redefine our industry based on the services, relationships and solutions that we can offer to consumers. Let’s not talk about the terminal decline in the use of paper or all manner of office products. Instead, highlight the services: one point of contact, one invoice, one delivery; reducing the impact on the environment; being able to react to urgent demands for products like never before...
We are not in a sector where you can coast, where growth comes automatically. We have to work for it, spend time and energy on it.
OPI: Final thoughts from an industry veteran? I know you hate that term…
SH: Be clear about what you’re good at, but also what you’re not good at. It’s ok to say “no, that’s not us, that’s not our competency”.
At the same time, be bold and learn new things – within your competencies. And remember, it’s not a popularity contest. It’s hard work to be bold and ahead of the game. But the rewards will be amazing and make it all worthwhile.
