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The Office Machinery Industry in the United Kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

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Extract

The study reported on here deals mainly with the competitive position of the United Kingdom office machinery industry, and is part of a wider investigation into the competitiveness of British industry which the National Institute has been undertaking. The article includes a substantial amount of new statistical and other material, much of it obtained from three special inquiries, directed to manufacturers and concessionaires, large users, and retailers, into the structure of the industry and the reasons for its competitive weakness. Details of the coverage of these inquiries, which were conducted in 1967, are given in Appendix II.

Type
Research Article
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 49 , August 1969 , pp. 52 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

This article was prepared by S. Hays, Mrs M. F. W. Hemming, and G. F. Ray of the National Institute. The Institute is grateful to the Department of Economic Affairs for its financial support and to those who helped at various stages of the study : the officials of the Business Equipment Trade Association; the member firms who agreed to be interviewed and prepared answers to the questions put to them; the users and retailers who completed the questionnaires directed to them, especially those who supplemented their replies by oral comments; and the officials of various government departments who provided much useful unpublished information.

References

note (1) page 52 In particular, the inquiries to users and retailers were the source of tables 5, 14, and 15. Fuller analyses of them will be available from the National Institute.

note (2) page 52 On the basis of figures supplied by the Ministry of Technology and the Department of Employment and Pro ductivity.

note (1) page 53 The Olympia factory at Wilhelmshaven is the largest typewriter factory in Europe and is associated with the largest business machines factory in Germany. The combination . of Facit and Addo has brought Sweden into the top rank of producers of adding and calculating machines. In Italy Olivetti dominates the production of typewriters, accounting, and electronic desk machines.

note (1) page 54 Electric typewriters are a promising field. The ratio of manual to electric machines is about 5 to 1 in the United Kingdo m compared with 2 to 1 in the United States.

note (2) page 54 See Treasury, ‘Public Purchasing and Industrial Efficiency’ (Cmnd 3291), paragraph 21.

note (3) page 54 These figures of output are derived from a variety of sources, notably statistical series first collected from the war years until 1955 by the Ministry of Supply, from then until 1966 by the Board of Trade, and more recently by the Ministry of Technology. The coverage and breakdown are somewhat different from those in the Census of Production (table 16 in Appendix I). Even for what appear to be comparable categories (typewriters, cash registers, etc.) there are quite large discrepancies in years for which data from both sources are available. Possible explanations include differences in timing (since annual data based on the series refer to calendar years and Census data to any twelve months ending during the year in question) and differences in the industry classification as applied to companies and establishments. For the years before 1955, the data, some of them hitherto unpublished, have been taken from Ministry of Supply records; from 1955 onwards the details have been published in the Board of Trade's Business Monitor series on office machinery. This series includes dictating machines (not shown separately) in addition to the main categories of office machinery covered by SIC 338. Like the Census of Production, however, it has never included document copiers—which since 1964 have been included (though not identified) in another Business Monitor series on photographic equipment. Document copiers have, however, become such an important part of the office machin ery industry that an attempt has been made here and at other points in this study to provide estimates for them. Attention is therefore drawn to the statistical definitions accompanying the tables. Electronic computers, with output valued at about £75 million in 1966 and £110 million in 1968, have, unless otherwise indicated, been excluded from the statistical survey throughout, although in a few cases the comments relate to them.

No reliable price indicator is published for office machinery and hence volume estimates cannot be made. As a very crude indication the price index for the output of engineering and allied trades may be used : this increased from 1954 to 1968 by almost 50 per cent. If applied to the 146 per cent rise in value of office machinery output it gives a volume rise of about 70 per cent between 1954 and 1968. In the same period the index of manufacturing output rose 51 per cent.

note (1) page 58 There were of course other industries with a much higher share of R and D expenditure in net output-such as chemicals with 4.5 per cent. (The figures are estimates by the National Institute and Business Ratios, Autumn 1966.)

note (1) page 59 An examination in the light of data from ‘Who owns whom’ (O. W. Roskill and Co.) of firms listed in the 1966/67 Kompass Directory (Kompass Publications) or mentioned in trade journals revealed 38 subsidiaries of foreign companies (29 in the United States, four in West Germany, and one each in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzer land).

note (1) page 60 ‘The Business Machines Industry in Scotland’, unpublished memorandum prepared by Strathclyde University for the Scottish Development Council.

note (2) page 60 J. H. Dunning,’ United States subsidiaries in Britain and their UK competitors’, Business Ratios, Autumn 1966.

note (1) page 61 These comparisons are in value terms; an analysis by numbers would naturally give different orders of importance for the various types though growth rates would not change much.

note (1) page 63 These ‘shares’ are based on value; similar shares by number of typewriters would be considerably different because the average value of typewriters produced in the main countries differs appreciably. In 1963 the average value of one typewriter produced (in dollars) was over 200 in the United States and France, 78 in the United Kingdom, 72 in West Germany, 60 in Sweden, 55 in Italy, and 48 in Spain. These great differences are due to the pattern of output : the preponderance of electric (and other sophisticated) types in the United States and France and of portables in Italy, with the United Kingdom lying between these extremes.

note (2) page 63 Additional details of share of output and trade are given in Appendix I tables 17 and 18 respectively.

note (3) page 63 See C. Freeman, Research and development in electronic capital goods’, National Institute Economic Review no. 34, November 1965, table 1, page 42.

note (1) page 64 Various factors influence their comparability, such as the exchange rates, the varying incidence of indirect taxation, the differences in the price systems of the various countries, etc.

note (1) page 66 The recorded exports of document copiers are considerably less than reported production for export.

note (1) page 68 Market-supplier matrices for the main industrial countries in 1959 and 1967 are given in Appendix I, table 19.

note (1) page 74 Published respectively by Kompass Publications Ltd, Digest Data Books Ltd, and André Deutsch (1966).

note (2) page 74 In round numbers.

A correction has been issued for this article:

Errata