When you think of a printing company, what's the first name that pops into your head—besides your own firm? How about Emdeon or DataProse? CSG, IGH Solutions or Pindar? Do you think of blurb.com, Cinram, Clondalkin or Impress? What about WorkFlow-One? You might have run across NJVCC or Affinity Express. Many of these firms are growing dramatically, with hundreds or even thousands of employees hard at work putting images on paper and online for hire.

Yet they are neither widely known nor, in many cases, recognized formally as being printers at all. In large part, this is due to a breakdown in precision by analysts at the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. The government works from increasingly antiquated definitions of what a printer is. And because the government can't define printers, it is unable to count them.

One striking example is publicly traded American Reprographics. Though it sounds like a printer, the firm doesn't actually run any presses. Yet it generates more than $700 million in annual revenue at 350 sites and thousands of facilities managed operations, reproducing architectural drawings and making copies—clearly printing for pay.

The issue is that the government groups businesses into categories known as North American Industrial Classifications, or NAICs. By the government's interpretation, American Reprographics is not a printer (NAIC 323) but a “Business Services” firm (NAIC 561). InnerWorkings, a large manager of hundreds of millions of print project dollars, falls under “Marketing Services” (NAIC 541).

Photo and book printer Snapfish is categorized under “Other Telecommunications” (NAIC 517), while online book printer blurb.com is “Database and Directory Publishers and Printing Combined” (NAIC 511). Giant mail printer Transcontinental Direct USA is NAIC 541611, “Administrative Management and General Management Consulting.”

You get the idea. So when you hear those presentations telling you printing is going away, it really means that it is only going away from NAIC code 323 and, thus, for some highly visible analysts, it becomes invisible. What's missing from the analyst reports on the printing industry are incorporation of the varieties of emerging business services that principally involve printing.

Here are some examples:

• Photolabs and photo-processing firms that produce those wide-format banners and posters you see on buildings and billboards, as well as Snapfish and Shutterfly, that use iGens, Indigos and NexPresses.
• Sign shops; reprographics firms.
• Transpromotional printers and mailing centers—Emdeon and DataProse reside here, by the way.
• Online print resellers and dealers, whose numbers are legion. If their sites offer self-service prepress, aren't they in the graphic communications business?
• On-demand website outlets that format e-book pages and/or print and ship books.

This confusion plays out in the real world as printers present themselves at help-wanted websites like CareerBuilder and Monster.com. Some 160 pages listed more than 2,000 jobs under the keyword “printing,” yet many hiring firms think of themselves as marketing, communications, graphics, and mailing services, among many other permutations.

The problem is compounded if our industry does not quickly embrace emerging business arenas. An ad hoc group of educators and industry specialists is now working with the Dept. of Commerce to update the definition of printing, and deserves our support. Our industry isn't disappearing—it's migrating. Let's move with it.

bill.esler@reedbusiness.com