2025 was a standout year for Office Bridge, in Dealer Support’s final issue of the year, Mike Astbury sat down with us to talk about the business’ 20-year anniversary

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of Dealer Support

“Over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of positive momentum at Office Bridge, alongside some real business-environment challenges. We turned 20 this year! We’ve continued to enhance what was already a significant diversification of office supplies turning our offering into a complete workplace solution, with services including full office refurbishments, managed print services, washroom services, branding & AV solutions which have all been successful amongst our customer bases.

Sustainability and Social Responsibility

From a sustainability and social responsibility point of view, we began our journey through a sustainability programme called “Weaver” focusing on carbon footprint, waste management, single-use packaging and social responsibility. Working within the community, the business and our team have continued to donate both time and money to our local community, through our Office Bridge Live event back in February and small challenges throughout the year.

The Challenges to Conquer

With a huge amount of uncertainty and budget constraints particularly within the education sector, it has been one of the toughest periods we have experienced within our traditional office supplies category. Reduced online basket size has been most noticeable, along with requests for comparison quotations or price matching against online retailers such as amazon.

Although we have seen several successes within our furniture fit out offering, customers are much more cautious about large volume spending, resulting in delayed decision making and last-minute change of plans.

Ready for the Next Phase

Overall, I’d say the past 12 months have been tough yet educational where we have learnt a lot and feel that we have set ourselves up nicely for the next growth phase in an ever-challenging time. We’ve evolved in several ways! I can’t say that it was all plain sailing!

Turning 20 is a huge milestone for us, the team and I are extremely proud. When Paul Newby started out the business all those years ago delivering printer cartridges around the Chester area, I don’t think he would have envisaged where we are today. 20 years on and there’s more than one million products available to our customer base across the UK!

Click the link above to read the full interview!