Following many many years of healthier development throughout the second half of the nineties, the place of work furniture industry in Wonderful Britain has entered a period of stagnation or only modest expansion. Most of the observed development goes on account of increased rates. office furniture solution in real-phrases – that is right after the elimination of the effect of inflation – are now roughly thirty % lower than at the commencing of this century. We anticipate that growth this 12 months and yet again up coming calendar year will remain lacklustre and hover close to the two % selection. If our predictions are appropriate, the market place price will exceed for the 1st time the £700 million mark this 12 months.

Product sales of submitting cabinets and other place of work storage furniture fared notably poorly. This is not shocking and a reflection of the continuing transition from paper-based mostly places of work to paperless offices. On the other hand, workstations and other technique furnishings, as properly as workplace chairs have been doing far better. In fact the market share of workstations and similar household furniture is now close to one-half, whilst it was only in the forty p.c selection throughout the late nineteen nineties.

An fascinating trend is that picket office household furniture is attaining in acceptance, even though such products are typically much more pricey than steel or plastic home furniture. A feasible explanation for this phenomenon could be the growing use of technologies in contemporary offices. Wood home furniture provides a very good counterbalance to an otherwise sterile atmosphere by delivering far more warmth to the workplace.

International competitiveness stays a formidable and increasing problem for British isles business office furniture makers. The so named import penetration – that is the percentage of international made workplace furniture – ways a single-third. We predict that it will exceed fifty% by 2010. Throughout the 90s the ratio was significantly less than a single-quarter. Most imported products even now have their origin in other European international locations, but imports from China and other Asian nations around the world (these kinds of as Vietnam) demonstrate by far the speediest growth rate.