Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018

This report analyzes the issues faced by Duque PapetiersGros in expanding to Germany and international standards. It includes an overview of the wholesale stationers market in Germany, annual spending on writing/drawing materials per capita, analysis of Duque's last three financial years of sales data, feasibility of expanding to Germany, costs of a new building, mean value of orders, and customer satisfaction.

Report for Duque PapetiersGros
Date:

Report for Duque PapetiersGros
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
Table of Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
2. Analysis of Issues for Duque PapetiersGros......................................................................................2
2.1 An Overview of the Wholesale Stationers Market in Germany......................................................2
2.2 Annual Spending on Writing/Drawing Materials per Capita...........................................................3
2.3Analysis of Duque’s last three financial years of sales data (2015-2017)........................................3
2.4Feasibility of Expanding to Germany & International Standards.....................................................6
2.5Costs of a New Building...................................................................................................................7
2.6Mean Value of Orders.....................................................................................................................8
2.7Customer Satisfaction......................................................................................................................8
3. Conclusions.....................................................................................................................................10
4. References......................................................................................................................................13
5. Appendices.....................................................................................................................................14
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
1. Introduction
Today, Germanywithout doubt ranks as one of the top most markets for stationaries in
Europe. The Trade Association for Office Supply and Writing Materials in their study has
reported that Germany has an annual turnover of stationaries amounting up to greater than
€14.8 in billions per annum.This follows the fact that an average German resident spends over
€182 on stationeries every year.Almost €35.2 out of this amount was found to be spent for
the purchase of writing material and drawing supplies. According to the MGCC Germany has
the second highest spending on stationary supplies among all of the countries in the
European Union (malaysia.ahk 2016).
2. Analysis of Issues for Duque PapetiersGros
2.1 An Overview of the Wholesale Stationers Market in Germany
There are about 2200 companies in the German wholesale market for stationaries
who deal with goods such as writing equipment, paper and office supplies. Many among
these are intermediaries between businesses.It has been seen that about fifty percent of
these businesses experience more than €500,000 worth of turnover (malaysia.ahk 2016). The
wholesale businesses not only acting as business intermediaries and engage in selling their
goods such as writing materials, instruments, and paper and office supplies to retailers but
also conduct business directly with the customers.It has been seen however that there is a
decreasing trend that is being observed in the number of existing wholesalers in the German
market (Isokane et al. 2017). This is explained by the phenomena of companies undergoing a
change in their strategies by merging together or simply closing business altogether.Moreover
as per the MGCC there is a shifting tendency among the existing businesses to bypass the
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
intermediary retail businesses altogether to interact and communicate with commercial
customers and deliver the products directly.This has been seen to benefit the businesses and
widened their scope (malaysia.ahk 2016).
2.2 Annual Spending on Writing/Drawing Materials per Capita
Switzerland Germany Austria France Slovenia Italy Slovakia
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
35.5 35.2 35
28.3
20.4 18.6
9.8
Annual Spendings on Writing / Drawing Materials per capita
Annual Spendings
Figure T2: Annual per Capita expenditure on Writing / Drawing
It has been observed thatexpenditure per capita on writing/drawing materials is the
most in Switzerland. Germany is seen to hold the second rank and it is then followed by
Austria.Thus Germany can be considered as a suitable market to consider for expansion.
2.3Analysis of Duque’s last three financial years of sales data (2015-2017)
After reviewing the sales data of Duque for the year 2016, it was seen that16% of total
sales were supplies for writing/drawing which increased to 18% of total sales in 2017. The
printer cartage sales was found to constitute14% in 2016 and this decreased to 13% in 2017.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
The sale in general office supplies constituted of 15% of the sales in 2016which decreased to
13% in the following year, 2017.The sale of low cost printers were found to contribute to 10%
of total sales in 2016 and in 2017 as well. 14% of the total sales in 2016 was seen to be from
office furnitureand this showed increase to 15% in the year 2017. For shedders, the sale was
16% of the total inboth 2016 and 2017. Finally the sale of paper based supplies was seen to
be 15% of the total sales in 2016 and this remained the same in 2017.
2016
14%
2016
15%
2016
10%
2016
14%
2016
16%
2016
15%
2016
16%
2017
12%
2017
13%
2017
10%
2017
15%
2017
16%
2017
15%
2017
18%
Mixed Pie Chart of Sales by each Product in 2016 and
2017
printer cartridges general office supplies low-cost printers office furniture
shredders paper-based supplies writing/drawing materials
Figure 3.1: Comparison of Sales by Product for 2016 and 2017
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
165000
182000
178000
f(x) = 6500 x + 162000
R² = 0.534810126582278
Total Sales (in €)
Year
Total Sales (in €)
Figure 3.2: Total Sales with respect to Year against Prediction of Sales for 2018 and 2019
The Pearson correlation coefficient(r) measuring the relationship between the variable
measuring total sales of Duque and the variable recoding year wascomputed to be 0.73.
Hence there exists positive and strong correlation between sales and time for Duque, that is,
there is a trend of increasing sales that is being observed for Duque. Then the regression
equation of total sales by Duque on time in years was obtained as:
Total Sales = 6500 * Time (measured in years) + 162000
The value of the R-squared statistic (R2) as shown on the scatter plot was found to be
0.5348. This statistic quantifies the goodness of fit of the regression model and its value
means that a total of 53.48 percent variation of the total variation in the response variable
that is total sales was explained by the model. The regression uses the variable Time which
assumes values in the set {1,2,3,..} corresponding to the years as they progress from 2015 to
2017, hence the variable has an ordinal scale (Vermez 2017). The total sales predicted for
2018 was therefore obtained by plugging in the value 4 into the equation as 162000 + 4*
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
6500 which equals €188,000. Similarly the predicted sales for 2019 was obtained by plugging
in 5 as, 162000+5*6500 which equals€194,500.
2.4Feasibility of Expanding to Germany & International Standards
Should I expand my business to Belgium & Germany?
Pros Score/10 Cons Score/10
The brand would be
expanding to new market
hence the market would
expand
9 The complexity in logistics
would increase 8
Increased output and
efficiency 8 Capital investment needs
to be procured 7
Improved image in local
market and consequently a
greater impact
7
Need to adapt to the new
cultural environment and
work to forge business
relationships from scratch
in the new market
5
Total Pros 24 Total Cons 20
Average Pros 8 Average Cons 6.66
Comparing the pros with the cons, it was observed that the score for pros was greater
than that of the cons and therefore it was deemed that the company should go forward with
the decision to expand into Germany.
The International Standards that the activities of Duque are to be held accountable to
are:
 DIN 4999
 UNE – EN 12858
 ISO 618:1974
 DIN EN 12858
 DIN EN 1010 – 3
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
2.5Costs of a New Building
The company need to pay €1755.14 every month if interest is applied at the amount
to be paid at beginning of every year to clear a loan of amount £200,000 in a period of thirty
years with an annual interest of 10 percent.
The amount that the company would have to pay every month if they should choose
the second scheme where the interest is applied on monthly basis is €1691.78 for the same
mortgage amount as above and the same thirty year period. The calculation in this case was
done such that the interest rate of 10 percent was readjusted to obtain an annual percentage
rate or APR.
Thus the second scheme was found to be more economical whereby the company
would have to pay lesser per month for scheme 2 than scheme 1.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
2.6Mean Value of Orders
Donald is said to believe that his firm receives an average of €240 worth of orders
every month. It is of interest to verify this claim. To verify this assertion, it is not possible to
inspect each and every order in a month due to its sheer volume and so a randomly drawn
representative sample was considered on size fifty.
Let, sample mean be X , population mean as μ, standard deviation of sample as s and
sample size as n.
Now,μ is given as €240. Then X = €230 and s = €43. Sample size n = 50 which implies
that n-1 = 50-1 = 49 (degrees of freedom).
The pair of hypotheses used to test the conjecture by Donald can be written as:
H0: μ = 240 (Null)
H1: μ ≠ 240 (Alternate)
The Level of significance (α) was assumed to be 5% or equal to 0.05 and the student’s
t-statistic that is of interest for this test was computed as:
t= X−μ
s
√ n
=230−240
43
√ 50
=−1.644
Critical value of the statistic was obtained to be 2.0096. This is greater than the
observed value of the statistic andthus the null could not be rejected at 5% level (Vermez
2017). Hence it can be asserted that what Donald has assumed is not incorrect.
2.7Customer Satisfaction
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
The questionnaire for the customer satisfaction and perception is to the point and
covers all relevant information required for analysis that it is has been able to address
redundancy and minimize it. The questionnaire is therefore deemed to be fine in terms of
content and requires no major change.What is to be addressed however is the method of
data collection or rather questionnaire distribution and re-collection. This is because the
response rate to the questionnaire have been observed to become lower than 5% in the
previous year.
Currently the questionnaires are mailed to the potential respondents via email. It is
suggested that along with the questionnaire theemail explains to the ones receiving the
questionnaires about the purpose of the study and the scope of research as well as all legal
implications that may involve the respondent. It should make sure to intimate the respondent
about what kind of information is required and how it will be utilised. Additionally it should
give an estimate of the time that may be required to complete the survey. This would aid the
respondent to adjust the task of filling the survey into their schedule as per convenience.
Moreover it could be beneficial to include some kind of incentive to the respondents such as
gift cards, discount vouchers or passes to events so that they complete the survey.
Twenty completed survey forms were collected in the 2017 survey out of all the
questionnaires that were mailed out. The questionnaire that was sent collected information
like how the respondent or the customer rated the company on their customer service, on
the quality of their service and product, on the attitude of the sales staff staff and as well as
on the current pricing of the commodities.
The maximum rating score was set as 4. The observed summary ratings from the
survey responses are as follows. The company had an average customer service rating of 3.5.
The standard deviation of the customer service rating variable was 0.76. This means that the
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
company has a consistent and good rating on customer service. The company had an average
products and service quality rating of 3.15. The standard deviation of the products and service
quality rating was 0.37. This indicates that company has a consistent and good rating on
service and product quality. The company had an average sales staff rating of 3.45 and the
standard deviation of the same was 0.83. Thus they have good rating in terms of staff
behaviour towards customers. Finally, company had an average price rating of 1.95 with
standard deviation equal to 0.51. Here the rating is low and the standard deviation being low
as well implies that the rating is consistent. So out of all parameters the company rates worst
in terms of pricing that is the customers feel that the products of the company may be too
pricy.
This issue could potentially negatively impact the business by riving customers away to
brands who offer cheaper prices. The study therefore recommends that the company look
into their pricing policy and try to identify how to assuage customer’s expectations. Aside
from this the company seems to be performing satisfactorily in the other aspects.
Statistic Mean Standard Deviation
CUST_SERV 3.5 0.76
QUAL_P&S 3.15 0.37
SALES_STAFF 3.45 0.83
PRICE_VALUE 1.95 0.51
Table 7.1: Summary Statistics of Customer Perception Survey
3. Conclusions
The objective of this paper is to present a report based on the market situation of the
stationary industry in Germany and European Union and with respect to that the
performance of Duque in order to give insight about how feasible it is for the firm to consider
expanding into new markets in the European Union. The key requirement identified was the
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
need to procure a new and suitable location for setting up the new business unit and in
procuring the necessary equipment to carry forward the venture. To do so it was understood
that the firm had to procure additional capital in the form of loans and it was found that a
monthly pay scheme of 30 years with interest being levied every month would be most
suitable to pay off a mortgage of £200,000. Another issue that was identified was the pricing
of the products and services of the company which was deemed too pricy by customers from
a survey conducted specifically to gauge customer perception on the company. The study
thus suggests that the firm work to identify possible scopes of revising its prices to better suit
customer expectation.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
4. References
Isokane, M., Tadokoro, C., Sasaki, S. and Prakash, B., 2017. Influence of Ink Composition on
Tribological Properties of Ballpoint Pen. Tribology Online, 12(5), pp.257-261.
Malaysia.ahk.de., 2018. MGCC Perspectives – A Chamber of Commerce magazine. [online]
Available at: http://www.malaysia.ahk.de/fileadmin/ahk_malaysia/Perspectives/MGC047-
Mar.Apr16_iPAD.pdf [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Vermez,E., 2017. An Introduction to analyzing data& Information: A problem solving. London.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
5. Appendices
Product item 2015 Sales (€) 2016 Sales (€) 2017 Sales (€)
printer cartridges 25000 26000 22000
general office supplies 25000 27000 23000
low-cost printers 15000 18000 18000
office furniture 25000 25000 27000
shredders 25000 29000 29000
paper-based supplies 25000 27000 27000
writing/drawing materials 25000 30000 32000
Total Sales (€) 165000 182000 178000
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