Annual reports of nine major pulp and paper companies from the past nine years were analyzed to assess their value creation capability, inventory levels, and operational speed capability. When scaled by sales, the differences in operational efficiency between companies are small. Large companies perform Similarly with their large and similar product palettes. Medium sized companies show slightly greater differences are greater. However, in several cases it is the small firms with local and focused operations which completely outperform the global players. Apparently, in contrast with other industries, the pulp and paper industry is still competing based on volume and share rather than on speed and hclency. The larger companies who first focus on operational speed will have a major advantage over their competitors in the future. Our trend analysis over the nine years of the study indicates that competition based on speed is about to start in this industry.