Margin squeeze and cost pressures driving performance improvements

摘要

A little like a child growing up in parched wheat fields, thinking the sky was falling in when they first experienced rain, some paper and board buyers had simply never experienced rising prices. Some did the commercial equivalent of fainting. Others feigned shock. After they finished swooning, a number of buyers were adamant the price increases should not apply to them. But in this most recent case, they have been applied - and further price increases are in the wings.The reason for their shock was simple. Over the last decade they had experienced only downwards prices. Moreover, even as input prices rose - like the cost of pulp and energy for instance - their paper suppliers had soaked up the cost increases, rather than pass them on.