TAPPI Fall 2005 Technical Conference Session - The State of The N.A. Pulp and Paper Industry - The Innovation Imperative – August 29, 2005

Jim McNutt -- Executive Director, CPBIS
500 10th Street NW -- Fourth Floor
Atlanta, GA 30332-0620
Cellular: 203.733.1096 -- Work: 404.894.5733 -- Fax: 404.385.2414 (GA)
Jim.McNutt@CPBIS.gatech.edu

Dan Cenatempo -- President, Value Resolution Group, Inc.
dan@valueresolution.com
185 Spalding Mill NE, Suite 200
Atlanta, GA 30350
Work: 770.522.8972 -- Home: 770.395.0501 -- Cellular: 404.217.2750 -- Fax: 770.522.8973

The North American Pulp and Paper Industry is not the low-cost producer on most grades, and high-volume grades have significant substitution threats. In addition, a large share of N. A. assets are aging and approaching the end of their economic lifetime. Participants must learn to thrive under these negative conditions. The overall industry will probably not fare well, but the individual companies can thrive if they use the next short-term upturn to embrace and leverage innovation. Innovation is imperative to create value.

Typical North American pulp and paper companies have shutdown their innovative capacity (if it ever existed). As a result, in part, industry performance has been dismal. Investment is spiraling downward and competitiveness is eroding. However, individual suppliers and paper companies can leverage innovation to outperform the industry and create value. To restart the innovation machine, we need to open the culture to allow practices that drive innovation, become more comfortable with different risk/return ratios by adopting an investor's mentality of portfolio management, and become more intellectual through leverage of market-driven inventing and valuation/portfolio management tools.

Click here for the full presentation (.pdf)