办公用品巨头史泰博亟需另谋出路

    美国办公用品公司史泰博（Staples）的市值很可能将出现显著下降。另外两家办公用品公司欧迪办公（Office Depot）和麦克斯办公用品公司（Office Max）的市值过去几年均已跌至5亿美元以下。有充分证据显示，史泰博的市值在中期可能也会出现重大损失。

    首先，让我们看一看史泰博的核心业务——办公用品。经济衰退和数码平台兴起这两大因素已经导致美国过去三年的用纸量下降了24%。与纸质文件相关的许多其它办公用品，如文件夹、活页夹、回形针、文件柜等也遭受了连锁反应。尽管近年来史泰博从竞争对手那里抢到了一些市场份额，但是去年它的收入只增长了1.5%。相比之下，沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）的同店销售额增长率达到了2.6%，况且沃尔玛的规模还要比史泰博大出10倍多。

    史泰博的目标是成为全球最好的办公用品公司。但是在今天，这算是一个误入歧途的目标。史泰博应该立即转变业务模式，向IBM那样朝着增值产品和服务转型。IBM在郭士纳的带领下认识到，已经大规模商品化的硬件已无利可图，因此它把自己转型成一家服务型公司。IBM将PC业务部门剥离给中国的联想集团（Lenovo），从而得以把重点放在利润更高的服务业务上。今天，IBM的市值已经达到2,300亿美元，而且稳居商业科技服务领域的核心地位。

    （我们请史泰博的发言人对本话题发表评论，但该发言人并未回应。）

    史泰博的业务的确包括一个服务领域——复印和打印业务。但是金考快印（Kinkos）以及Vistaprint和Mimeo等在线印刷商早已把这个服务领域商品化了。最近史泰博还克隆了百思买（Best Buy）的“极客小队”（Geek Squad）模式，提供自己的“易科技”（EasyTech） PC升级与维修服务。问题是，史泰博的服务在价值链上爬得不够高，还不能给公司带来太多的利润。目前，它在服务领域的大多数工作仅限于简单维修或安装廉价的内存条。史泰博必须迅速行动，避免自己遭到商品化和竞争的双重打击。

    下面，让我们把史泰博的收益流进行一下简单的划分：

    1．北美递送部门：这个部门主要根据合同向大公司供应大批量的办公材料。虽然这个部门避免了零售所需要的成本，但是随着数字化办公越来越流行，它的利润空间还会持续受到挤压，核心业务领域的业绩也会下降。同时史泰博的商业客户正在寻找一切办法减少办公开支。比如许多公司都出台了电脑打印的限制规定。

    2．北美零售部门：史泰博的门店遍布美国各地，但它现在遭到了电子商务的沉重打击。虽然史泰博也有自己的网站，也能从电子商务中赚到一些钱，但还是无法填补运营几千个库存零售业务单位所需要的庞大成本。

    另一方面，亚马逊（Amazon）和其它纯粹的电商网站还将继续蚕食市场份额。随着亚马逊推出了免费递送政策，在史泰博买办公用品还有什么优势呢？现在亚马逊正在计划摧毁实体零售的最后一个优点——实时取货。亚马逊打算在各地建立本地配销中心，以便在当天就可以发送一些消费者经常订购的商品。

    另外，史泰博通过自己的配销中心获得更大效益的唯一希望却被亚马逊收购走了。这家被亚马逊收购的Kiva Systems公司专门生产用于包装和货运的机械臂。亚马逊收购Kiva后，不仅可以控制这些机械臂的定价，还可以限制它们对史泰博的正面影响。链接中是史泰博自己的证言。

    亚马逊可能短期内不会在这个领域做出挤压史泰博的举动。但即便史泰博愿意向亚马逊购买去年最新的Kiva机械臂，亚马逊也肯定会把最好的配送中心技术留给自己。

    3．国际运营。这个部门去年也出现了亏损。零售企业的国际运营部门难以管理是个众所周知的事实。对于史泰博来说，它一方面要应对大量本土的竞争对手，另一方它的全球服务部又不能帮它迅速重新分配资产，因此有可能一夜之间，库存就变成了噩梦。另外，有些国家也同样正在进入数码时代，它们对数码设备的采用率甚至比美国还快。比如移动产品在巴西获得了大量采用，使许多传统台式电脑和打印设备的需求却大大下降。

    Staples may be heading for a steep decline in value. Office Depot (ODP) and Office Max (OMX) have already plunged in the last few years to sub-$500 million market caps. There is ample evidence that Staples could also lose substantial value in the mid-term.

    First, let's consider its core business: office supplies. The recession and the rise of digital platforms have led to a 24% decrease in the use of paper across the US in the last three years. Many other office items depend on the paper chain: folders, binders, clips, file cabinets, etc. Despite taking market share from its competitors, Staples (SPLS) has only been able to eke out a 1.5% revenue growth rate this past year. Compare that with same-store sales growth of 2.6% for Wal-Mart (WMT) stores on a base that is more than ten times the size of Staples.

    The mission of Staples is to be the best office supply company in the world. That is a misguided goal in today's times. Instead, Staples should immediately leverage its corporate business and transition to services and value-added products in the way that IBM (IBM) did. When IBM realized that its hardware was commoditized, it transformed itself into a services company under the leadership of Lou Gerstner. By shedding its PC division to China's Lenovo, IBM was able to refocus on a higher-margin service business. IBM now commands a $230 billion market cap and a core position in business tech services.

    (A Staples spokesperson did not respond to request for comment for this piece.)

    The one service area that Staples does offer -- photocopying and print services -- has long been commoditized by Kinkos (FDX) and now online suppliers such as Vistaprint and Mimeo. Staples has also recently tried to copy Best Buy's (BBY) Geek Squad model with its EasyTech PC upgrade and repair offering. The problem is that the services it offers do not climb far enough up the value chain to generate substantial margin. Most of the work is limited to simple fixes and installation of inexpensive memory chips. Staples will have to move very quickly to save itself from this double barrel shotgun of commoditization and competition.

    Next, let's break down the revenue streams at Staples:

    1. North American Delivery: This division supplies office material to large companies on contract and in bulk volume. While this unit avoids the cost of retail outlets it will be increasingly squeezed on margin and will suffer declines in core product categories as digitization continues to take hold. Staples commercial customers are looking for savings wherever they can find them. For example, many companies are now implementing forced limits on computer printing.

    2. North American Retail: With an extensive store footprint across the US, Staples is a sitting duck for e-commerce. True, it is making a valiant attempt to capture some of those e-commerce dollars with its own site, but this is outweighed by the massive infrastructure of running a multi-thousand SKU retail operation.

    Amazon (AMZN) and other pure-play e-commerce sites will continue to gain market share. With Amazon's prime service of free shipping, what advantage is there to buying supplies at Staples? Amazon now plans to wipe out the last remaining benefit of offline retail -- the ability to have the item at the time of purchase -- by building out local distribution centers that will deliver frequently ordered goods the very same day.

    Furthermore, Amazon just bought one of the last hopes for Staples to gain efficiency in its distribution centers: Kiva Systems. Kiva makes the robots that bring 200% to 400% efficiency gains to pick-pack and ship operations. Now that Amazon owns Kiva, it can control pricing of these robots and limit their upside impact at Staples. Here is a testimonial from Staples itself.

    Amazon will probably not make any immediate move on this front to squeeze Staples. Yet, it surely will keep the best distribution center technology for itself even as Staples will now pay Amazon for last year's models.

    1. International Operations: This unit has swung to a loss over the last year. International operations in retail businesses are notoriously difficult to manage. You open yourself up to a myriad of local competitors and do not have the fungibility of a global services organization to reposition assets quickly. Inventory can become a nightmare overnight. Furthermore, some countries are now heading into the digital age with even faster adoption rates than the US. Mobile adoption in Brazil, as an example, has obviated the need for many traditional desktop computing and printing supplies.