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Blog
January 8, 2021 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
January 8, 2021. – The vaccine market is hot. Every nation in the world is craving for the covid vaccinations. At the same time, each country is unhappy with the low shot volume they are receiving. Customers are not getting what they have ordered. Supply chain is lagging behind. The situation reminds me of a […]
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December 18, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
December 18, 2020. – Seasoned people in the industry remember autumn 2008. After September and Lehman Brothers the plywood orders started to vanish steadily month by month. There were no ups and downs, just a steady decline towards the rock bottom in 2009. The business oracles predicted a flat or W-shaped future. Incentives and bonuses […]
December 11, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
December 11, 2020. – Everyone of us has done sloppy work. Subconsciously one might have acknowledged that his or her work can lead to further questions, requests, or investigation. In most cases things run just fine, but sometimes our subconscious was right. Turning back to the same issues means additional work which could have been […]
December 4, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
December 4, 2020. – Logistics hubs and delivery centers are stuffed with small parcels. Buying goes online at an increasing speed. Instead of fetching their supplies from brick-and-mortar stores, Covid-era people feel safer ordering goods with home delivery. Christmas and Black Friday type of campaigns make it the busiest season for logistics companies. Internet sales […]
November 27, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
November 27, 2020. – This year the majority of customer negotiations has been online. It feels modern and effective and saves plenty of travel. But it is not quite like being in the same room. Luckily the technical connections work already quite well, even though the line usually breaks just when the other party is […]
November 20, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
November 20, 2020. – The autumn rains have reached us in many locations. It makes me wonder if we are heading to a similar winter season as last year. In many places the weather was too warm and rainy. Harvesting got muddy and forest roads became too soft for the heavy log trucks. Along with climate […]
November 13, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
November 13, 2020. – In late autumn, companies usually plan the new fiscal year. For sales people it is also a time to renew plywood supply contracts. The main elements that buyers and sellers need to agree on are volume, price and the contract period. In the sea of plywood, the rough conditions have passed […]
November 6, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
November 6, 2020. – Traditionally, OSB (oriented strand board) and softwood plywood have been compared to each other in many use cases. The more frequent storms and hurricanes have increased the demand for protection sheets. And it used to be just heavy weather when wooden panels were used for window and house protection. This week, […]
October 30, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
October 30, 2020. – Transportation vehicles are up for huge changes as cars are being electrified and automated. Perhaps one day we can read the newspaper while the car takes care of driving. Internet sales means that more, smaller delivery vans will be passing through residential areas. There is some consensus that the number of […]
October 23, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
October 23, 2020. – It is tough to innovate and develop new products. As plywood is considered a mature product, it is easy to believe that everything around it has already been invented. But plywood is one of the world’s first composites. Fundamentally,the different layers can consist of practically anything. There can be infinite product […]
October 16, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
October 16, 2020. – In economics the factors of production are the things needed to produce output, like plywood. The three basic factors of production are land, labour and capital. In modern business there are other factors as well, but let’s play a game and examine the plywood industry in relation to these three, classical […]
October 9, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
October 9, 2020. – Based on the National Bureau of Economic Research there were 33 business cycles in the United States between 1854 and 2009. The average growing economy lasts 3.2 years, and the average recession lasts 1.5 years. That doesn’t sound too long! Well, it would be simple if the recession would start on […]
October 1, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
October 2, 2020. – In three months we’ll have a new year on our hands. Before that we should have an agreed Brexit, undisputed presidential election in the USA, and hopefully some kind of grip on the Covid-19 pandemic. There are enough other concerns as well, but we cannot hide from these three topics. Will […]
September 24, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
September 25, 2020. – Plywood is a global business. It is no news that the panels sail the seven seas of the world. But still today, so do the logs. When the raw material supply chains are long, transparency and traceability gets difficult. Forest management and harvesting ethics vary in different regions. The common certificates […]
September 18, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
September 18, 2020. – When it gets hard to reach your monthly targets, it gets difficult to plan your business in the long term. You fall into a protective mode where you try to bring home all the deals you can. As prices level down, you start to “optimise” your sales and turn to where […]
September 11, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
September 11, 2020. – Sales forecasting is not among the easiest disciplines these days. As infection rates climb the uncertainty with sales planning increases. When things were steady, purchasers helped you with buying estimates. They wanted to ensure that they get the goods as needed. Even the orders came well in advance. Today, you don’t […]
September 4, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
September 4, 2020. – Perhaps you used to meet your foreign key accounts twice a year. Now you’ve managed with an online connection. That works just fine, yet you can’t wait getting back to “normal”. You think that maybe the “new normal” could be meeting once a year at the customer’s premises and online every […]
August 28, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila
August 28, 2020. – On Thursday Hurricane Laura landed in Louisiana, USA. Every time a new storm like Laura approaches, the media is covered with pictures of people protecting their homes, shops and offices with plywood sheets. That is the most common case when plywood becomes newsworthy. Sometimes we plywood people are irritated by the […]
August 21, 2020 / May 19, 2024 by Panu Anttila | Leave a Comment
August 21, 2020. – It is delightful to see the Swedish Vänerply alive and kicking after its 50 years’ anniversary. The first decades of the mill were not easy. It was owned by Vänerskog AB, a company formed by a few forest owner associations. Perhaps partly due to the ownership model, the company had severe […]
August 14, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila | Leave a Comment
August 14, 2020. – In 1776, the Scottish economist Adam Smith introduced the concept of an “invisible hand” in his book ‘The Wealth of Nations’. A short and liberal interpretation is that in a free market, supply and demand balance each other out. I am not much of an economist, but lately I’ve been thinking […]
August 7, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila | Leave a Comment
August 7, 2020. – Roundwood is hard to deliver over long distances. That is the reason why hundred years ago the wood processing mills were erected next to water. Nowadays, roads facilitate transportation, but the same, fundamental problems exist. Is it better to be close to customers or close to raw material? Unfortunately, trees and […]
July 31, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila | Leave a Comment
July 31, 2020. – According to the US Commerce Department the US economy shrank 32.9% in the second quarter. That sounds high. To be honest, these macro economy figures start to be so awkward that it goes beyond understanding. Shouldn’t they be a sum of individual business results? For individual businesses, a 32.9% decline is […]
July 24, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila | Leave a Comment
July 24, 2020. – Most of the Nordic and Baltic plywood mills will soon have their summer breaks. In previous years, interruptions in production have been minimal because demand for plywood remained high also during the summer. This year there is no reason to limit the length of workers’ vacations. It’s been a peculiar year […]
July 17, 2020 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila | Leave a Comment
July 17, 2020. – Researchers at the University of Washington forecast that the global population will peak at 9.7 billion by 2064. At the moment the world’s population is 7.7 billion. That means 2 billion people more in 44 years, or an average additional 45 million fellow inhabitants each year, which equals the population of […]
