Toners Category Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Office Supplies and its sub-segments such as Toners are at an interesting intersection. As a smaller indirect spend category, has largely escaped the intense scrutiny and analysis that procurement functions extend to most direct spend categories. However, some of the suppliers have begun to offer intelligent solutions to procure and analyze expenditure on each of the items so that effective budgeting can be done. Given the trend, more vendors are expected to offer such tools to buyers.

Offices in large corporations and organizations generate a lot of solid waste every day. Many organizations are now adopting practices to reduce their environmental footprint. In line with these aspirations, demand for recyclable office solutions and supplies is increasing. Parcel/courier packaging, stationery, small equipment and consumables are either being recycled or being manufactured with recycled materials.

Globalization has opened new markets for suppliers. Toners market was historically a localized industry, but many geographies have seen introduction of new, foreign players who brought with them a new set of business practices and value propositions. Influx of this new competition has forced the traditional local suppliers to innovate and enhance their offerings to match the new benchmarks.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Toners is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Sometimes, procurement functions are unable to timely alter their practices while responding to market conditions. Industry experts acknowledge that periodically reviewing procurement best practices and adopting learnings from across procurement categories can help procurement teams respond to market needs in a more agile way. This report combines our experience of other categories with Toners procurement insights and hand picks best practices that can work for category managers delving in this market.

For example, Buyers must accumulate essential data across their information systems and suppliers to create benchmarks for cost, quality and service levels for Toners suppliers.

Instead of customarily fixing the contract length to one or two years, buyers should determine the contract length based on market conditions and their likely impact on cost in future.

Advanced data analytics systems should be actively used to identify compliance issues, demand, and price tracking.

Toners procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Toners procurement. Some examples include: