Printers Optimistic About Year Ahead

Printing firms are bullish on the coming year, with 90% of respondents to TrendWatch's Printing Forecast 2005 print survey reporting that business conditions will improve or be steady next year. Overall, most printing firms (58%) expect that business will be about the same as it has been. Given that business has been good over the past 12 months, most printers would be satisfied with status quo. On the flipside, there is a sense by some that the good times they're experiencing now are as good as they're going to get.

Accordingly, this optimism is expected to translate to increased sales of printing presses. The report cited planned investment in six-color sheetfed offset presses to jump from 3% to 9%, and direct-to-press (i.e. QM-DI 46) offerings to rise to 4% (from 2% last year). Demand for heatset presses is also expected to rise from 1% to 3%.

Quick printers report robust results, largely as the result of embracing value-added services, as well as new technologies such as digital printing, color copying and non-print services such as cross-media products. This is no easy feat when considering that quick printers now compete, not just with other quick printers, but also from places such as Staples, the UPS Store and other retail stores which never would have been considered print providers in the past.

What's on printing companies investment lists? TrendWatch data reveals that workstations were the number one planned investment category, coming in at 70% of all survey respondents. This being the graphic arts, workstations largely means Macintoshes, which came in at 58%, up 2 percentage points from the fall 2003 survey. The G5 (the latest Mac model) is the most preferred. However, PC workstations also are on the rise—that investment category is up 4 points to 36%.

Printers also are focusing more investment dollars on bindery equipment. Fifteen percent of print and prepress firms participating in TrendWatch's spring print survey reported plans to invest in bindery equipment compatible with traditional offset or DI presses, while 7% informed of plans to invest in binding equipment compatible with digital presses. TrendWatch survey respondents identified an efficiently configured bindery was as important to a digital workflow as the output device and the prepress functions that drive it. Recognizing this important equipment category, an article in this issue of Graphic Arts Monthly (page 24) details trends in mid-size folders.

After three years in the doldrums business is back for creative firms. More than one-fourth (28%) of design and production firms participating in TrendWatch's summer creative survey report that business was excellent, better than the last 12 months, up from 15% just six months earlier. Almost half (47%) of all design and production survey respondents expect that business in the next 12 months will be excellent, better than the last 12 months, a rise from 35% last fall.

As the economy improves, companies will spend on advertising and marketing, which translates into more business for printing firms. TWGA foresees exciting times ahead for printers, characterized by the same level of material reward experienced in the late 1990s. Still, printer's customers will face challenges. More than half (51%) of creative firms cited pricing as a major business challenge, the highest that challenge has ever scored. New media choices don't easily fit into traditional pricing models for creative work, so these firms are making it up as they go along.