Business Management - Industry Trends

PRINTERS LOOKING to boost their bottom lines with digital printing, look no farther. Attendees at the general session “Profiting with Digital Print” at the upcoming PIA/GATF Variable Data and Personalization Conference will learn what industry profit leaders have done to maximize their digital printing investments and realize respectable returns. Last year, digital/toner-based printing grew at double the rate of traditional ink-on-paper printing. This session, led by Ronnie Davis, Ph.D., vice president and chief economist at PIA/GATF, will discuss details from recent economic data compiled by the association, a benchmark to compare a company’s efforts in achieving desired results. “Right now, toner-based/digital printing is

FOR THE second consecutive year, Visant Corp. nailed down the top spot in Book Business’ Top 30 Book Manufacturers list—produced by Printing Impressions’ sister publication and ranked by 2005 book manufacturing revenue—in what was certainly an up-and-down year for many book printers. The book manufacturing landscape continues to change, with paper prices on the rise while availability declines. Publishers are being more vigilant than ever in controlling their costs, while Asia’s impact on the market increases each year. In its annual look at the state of the industry, Book Business sought insights from executives at four of the companies on the list—four companies,

Last February, we ran a Google search to estimate the number of Adobe Acrobat PDF files that are available on the Internet. At the time, there were 315 million URLs that ended with the address “.pdf”. Just six months later, that same search identified 684 million of them. While this is not a perfect way of determining how many documents are on line, it is still quite informative. The popular use of the Internet may be just 11 years old, but this indicates that it’s still bulking up on its way to teenagerhood. What does this mean to the printing industry? While many of these documents

By Dr Peter Harrop IDTechEx Second generation printed electronics has arrived and its impact on society will be immense. A major new industry is born. Transparent solar cells will be on watches by year end and vast areas of printed flexible photovoltaics will be available within the next few years. Heliovolt promises a high efficiency silicon-free photovoltaic film in 2007. Polymer alternatives will have lower efficiency but often be lower in cost. Announcements have yet to be made but IDTechEx has identified several companies that will be commercialising polymer solar film in 2007. Light emitting moving colour displays, vehicle and room lighting on

Item level RFID is set for substantial growth over the next decade. A new study from IDTechEx forecasts and explores key markets that will apply item-level tagging, advances in technology and the mass adoption that will follow. Dr. Peter Harrop from IDTechEx summarises this study below. Item level RFID is the tagging of the smallest taggable unit of things – the library book, apparel, jewellery, engineering parts and laundry are examples. Already profitable for most suppliers, item level tags and systems will be the world’s largest RFID market by value from 2007 onwards. Item level RFID tagging will rocket from $0.16 billion in 2006

PRINTING, AS a craft and industry, is remarkable for the fundamental changes it has absorbed, particularly in the last 100 years or so. As a consequence, printers have become more segmented by process—sheetfed and web offset, gravure, flexo, etc.—as well as application—general commercial, labels, packaging, plastics and more. Digital technology is creating further segmentation while also increasing the potential for confusion. It’s become necessary to talk of print-for-pay versus personal and workgroup printing, along with in-plants and CRDs. Added to this are new designations such as industrial printing, transpromo and even direct marketing firm. Such diversity in the process and industry matters when it

PRICE INCREASES, or attempts to implement them, are what’s on tap in the paper sector. Along with raising quoted prices per ton, paper companies could feel renewed pressure to pass along higher energy costs through surcharges if oil prices do climb toward the $100/barrel mark predicted in the most bearish outlook. The Lane Press, in Burlington, VT, put an interesting spin on that latter market development. Under the “Did you know?” heading in its last two “Paper Prophet” newsletters, the printer pointed out to customers that “Lane Press’ close proximity to Northeast paper mills slashes transportation costs and reduces fuel surcharges.” There hasn’t been

In a world of short run lengths, personalization, and fast turnaround, can the industry’s traditional behemoths, commercial and newspaper web presses, continue to compete? Absolutely, according to industry leaders. Companies like Goss International, MAN Roland, and other web press makers are pursuing innovations that can enable web printers not merely to stay viable but to compete vigorously for more kinds of business than ever before. While most web press print production is advertising-driven, changing trends in the marketplace are reshaping the business model. Traditionally, web presses offer significant advantages. They’re extremely fast and productive, and paper cost for a web run can

A New PRIMIR Study Focuses On Print As One Choice Among Others In A Growing Media Pie For decades, print has been the media of choice by media buyers…in fact, they are often called “print buyers” because of the volume of print orders they make. It’s not to say that print is in disfavor today, but there are far more options available to the media buyer coupled with the fact that many are younger and have grown up with computers and electronic alternatives to print. The concern becomes that these younger buyers have a bias to the electronic alternatives, but why? The primary reason is

THE ECONOMY is irration-ally exuberant. Consumers are borrowing and spending in advance of expected higher prices, and businesses are robustly investing in both productivity (read “down-sizing”) and market development. This year is on track for nominal GDP growth of 6.5 percent, with printing sales up more than 5 percent. As economic power concentrates, nearly half the power of print will coalesce into finance, publishing, health and technology (nine of the top 25 demand sectors). Salespeople: focus below and cash in. Banking and Insurance ($2.9T in revenues; with over $15B to print, +8 percent) is the biggest buyer and beneficiary of print. Sub-prime