Print-specific predictions can be just as problematic. When Indigo launched its eponymous digital press at Ipex 1993, founder Benny Landa declared: I’ve seen the future and it’s a print run of one. Fifteen years on, the print run of one is indeed both feasible and commonplace for some printed items, but digital printing took far longer to become a viable business proposition than many people – Landa included – had anticipated. Sure, technology can sometimes change things very quickly; just look at how mobile phones and email have revolutionised everyday communication. But the fact remains that early adopters aren’t always the most successful: they can end up making the painful mistakes that others ultimately end up profiting from.
The flipside of this is, of course, you snooze, you lose. Over the past decade print managers have taught the industry an important lesson. They became successful by filling a gap and a market need that established print businesses should have been perfectly positioned to fill, yet failed to do so. But the world moves on and we may well have already seen print management’s heyday. As Lateral Group chief executive Nick Dixon notes: Print managers – just look at their financials. A lot have eaten their own breakfast. Dixon believes that a number of different models will come into play in the future: The pure print management play; technology-driven offerings; hybrid print management/manufacturing; and clients taking management back in-house by using technology that gives them visibility of spend. As a result, he’s positioned his group so that customers can buy a service or a proposition from the individual companies in silos, or they can buy a combined offering across the group that embraces different channels to market. Our view is that there will be major growth in marketing communications management, and print is just one of aspect of that. We’ve got to start mixing and optimising those channels, and the company that can deliver that to the client will have a lot of opportunities.
Industry dystopia
Recent events have understandably focused attention on the requirement for robust financial planning. In the short- to medium-term at least, finance will be much harder to come by, and companies that lack the necessary financial headroom to cope will fall by the wayside. Buxton Press chairman and chief executive Bernard Galloway is among the print bosses predicting an imminent shake-out: This is going to be a deep and long recession. We saw it coming and have been battening down the hatches for two years – we feel like we’ve climbed up a hill and we’re watching the tide come in. Others aren’t going to make it. Galloway pulls no punches as he describes Buxton’s vision of the coming storm: We see a three-year nuclear night, and the casualties are going to be enormous. The whole industry will collapse down to a much smaller number of companies.
If Galloway’s apocalyptic prediction comes to pass, the impending shake-out will have been triggered by one event in particular: the credit crunch. While businesses need strength to weather such a storm, futurologist Ray Hammond, who has researched how future trends will affect society and business for 25 years, believes the key to long-term success lies in focusing on trends. What’s happening now with the banks is an event, not a trend, and it’s the big trends that affect business planning, he says. A lot of people have alarming forecasts about the death of print. I don’t see a wonderful future for newspapers – they will probably linger for 20 years or more. E-books will sell, but will remain marginal for some time. I don’t think there will be an explosion in that market like there was with the iPod. But in general print, I see continuing growth. Digital technology just moves the point of printing. It’s likely to be ever-stronger, with little print shops doing distributed printing. The distributed model will also mean you’re not transporting thousands of tonnes of printed paper across the country.
The environment will become increasingly crucial, Hammond states. People will be very bothered about emissions and energy. Before long, we will have a carbon tax – Australia has already introduced one. The environment will probably be the most important issue that will affect business. I see a big move to ever more carbon saving. In tandem there will be an increasing requirement for printers to be IT experts. Printers have become more IT savvy in the past 20 years, but today they have to extend that knowledge to the wider scheme of IT to become a printer who is technologically competent in communications technology, Hammond adds.
One print company that has been IT-savvy for more than 20 years is imageData Group. The £25m-turnover firm lays claim to being a world pioneer in this respect, as it has been producing data-driven print for more than a quarter of a century thanks to the foresight of chairman Roger Birkin. Chief executive David Danforth says: We’ve always been a very forward-looking company, and our chairman Roger Birkin foresaw commodity pricing on a large element of print work. With data-driven print we have a relationship with our customers and we are not just ships that pass in the night. The company has always maintained an IT department as a fundamental part of the business. It’s not something that’s internal-looking, it’s more external, adds Danforth. We have 10 pure IT staff which is a lot for a business of our size. They spend a lot of time visiting customers, and looking at data streams. They visit every major customer we deal with.
ImageData has finessed its processes to the extent that some work is automatically loaded onto its digital presses via external instructions from clients, and will be printing before it’s been manually touched in any way onsite. Danforth believes the cost-effectiveness of digital kit will continue to improve, but he can’t see litho being completely phased out. That said, our new business conversations are more focused on things that will be printed digitally.
Digital revolution
It appears inevitable that digital print will continue to grow strongly, and although offset will remain a viable process, there are forecasts that by 2020, new digital technology may affect offset in the same way that offset challenged letterpress in the 1960s. All eyes are on developments in inkjet, and this technology could prove to be disruptive to both today’s toner-based digital printing equipment and to traditional print processes (see box-out overleaf). The internet will continue to remove boundaries between people and processes, to the extent that everyone involved in the design, specification, production and receipt of a job can be remote. It is unthinkable that the print shop of the future could operate without sophisticated management information tools that provide complete visibility on the planning, operation, and financial performance of the business.
Set against the sometimes startling pace of technology change, and the many complex business issues that need to be juggled, sometimes the best future strategy is the most straightforward: The way we look forward is still simple, Danforth states. Customers will tell you what they want. Most have wish-lists. Being close to them, and having open conversations, is essential. Customers will give you the future provided you listen and talk to them. We try very hard to listen.
RAY HAMMOND'S VIEW THE WORLD IN 2030
In many ways, daily life in the year 2030 will have been transformed so much as to be almost unrecognisable from a modern vantage point.
By 2030, all cars on major roads will be under the control of satellite and roadside control systems and many will be driving themselves. Apart from the need to reduce the present death toll from road accidents – and the need to squeeze many more cars on to crowded roads – automated vehicle and traffic systems will make it safer to travel through the extreme weather systems that we are likely to be suffering constantly in 25 years’ time.
All road vehicles (except licensed vintage and classic vehicles) will produce very low or zero carbon emissions. Most large cities will operate congestion charging and, in countries with severe traffic congestion, road pricing will be widespread.
In our homes, schools, factories, shops and leisure facilities, robots with varying degrees of intelligence (and made largely of plastic) will be our contented slaves, manufacturing wealth, easing our lives, caring for our needs and overseeing our security. Software ‘personalities’ will be our friends and assistants. Our energy will be supplied from a mixture of low-carbon fossil fuel sources, renewable energy sources and individual consumer-based energy generated from wind power, solar power, biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells.
By 2030, we will be constantly connected to what, today, we can only think of as a ‘super-web’ and that connection will, for those of us who choose to make the transition, be a bio-digital interface. At the very least our senses will be connected to the super-web by microphones and mini-projectors and, perhaps, some of us will have direct neural connections between our own brains and the ‘global brain’ – which is what the super-web will have become. Our communications and entertainment will be wholly ‘immersory’, multimedia, multi-sensory, 3D, holographic and fully tactile, telekinetic and olfactory.
Ray Hammond, The World in 2030
Ray Hammond is one of Europe’s leading futurologists. For more than 25 years, he has researched, written, spoken and broadcast about how future trends will affect society and business.
FRANK ROMANO'S VIEW THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ARE
Commercial printers
Today, productivity is low, makereadies are high, workflow is anaemic. This base of legacy equipment is holding many firms back. Some should consider replacing two of those legacy presses with one new highly automated press for an immediate improvement in productivity. Faster makereadies will allow short runs, which are now the norm. Automation will cut press staffing. Choose any sheet size for the market served or one of those presses that runs lightweight and heavier stocks – and move into folding carton printing. Coating units are a must. Offset litho still has advantages but digital printing is making headway for short runs and variable data.
Book and publication printers
Publishers have finally embraced on-demand printing to cut inventory and warehousing costs. No book will go out of print because digital kit can produce one copy – thus book printers must be able to handle the shortest to the longest runs if they apply both offset litho and digital. Backlist titles are moving to on-demand approaches and that requires a blend of long- and short-run print. It is possible some book printing could move into the bookstore, but the economies of longer shorter runs (like 10) and shorter longer runs (like 100) mean that centralised printing services will still be needed.
Business forms printers
Cheque volumes are down as more firms implement electronic bill presentment and payment. This market is changing as forms go electronic; forms printers must reinvent themselves. Combinations of forms and labels in one unit set will continue, but we need to look into radio frequency identification (RFID). Today, RFID is essentially a computer chip mounted on an antenna. The antennas are printed by a number of processes and once chip and antenna are combined, they are often affixed to label stock to be placed on pallets and cartons. Forms printers are uniquely qualified to combine these elements, presenting major opportunities.
Instant/quick printer/copy shops
These firms meet unreasonable deadlines. As long as customers’ personnel go home at 5pm, there is a business. Simple jobs may be done in-house, but complicated collating and binding projects will still be sent out at 5pm for next-morning delivery. A flexible colour printer with electronic collation is the new duplicator offset press. And a good array of finishing equipment is a must. Wide-format inkjet is growing in use – not just for signage, but short runs of window treatments, wall coverings, or other speciality products. The quick printer of the future will be a jack of all trades.
Newspaper printer
Modern newspaper colour presses are impressive. But colour is not enough when news is accessible anywhere, any time. Classified advertising has gone online but there is still the lucrative ad-insert market. But to be effective at ad-insert delivery you have to increase your coverage with home delivery or direct mail. Call it total market coverage, and you will be all right. Publishers are now using that big hunk of metal to print commercial work. It has the quality and capability to meet coldset market needs. Publishers are also building online communities among their readerships.
Magazine publishers
The loss of ad pages is a trend. The companion website is seeing growth in ad revenue, but it has not compensated for the loss of print ads. Websites won’t replace the printed magazine – you need both print and electronic alternatives in a multi-channel world where readers want their content in all forms, all the time.
Pre-press specialists
The world is becoming filmless. Other than packaging, the pre-press market has gone where typographers and engravers have gone – analogue heaven. Many are implementing high-end digital printing and leveraging colour and pre-press expertise. There is still a need for pre-press expertise in a world that swings between RGB and CMYK and print and the web.
Print buyers
Print buyers serve as designer, production manager, and print procurer. Most do not even have the term ‘print buying’ in their title. The company may not appreciate what they do, but they are an important link in the communications chain. They know how to define jobs and select the best services. The challenge is to demonstrate the value they bring to the organisation.
Industry suppliers
Progress in printing has long come from the supplier side. Many of the technologies of the printing industry have come from suppliers that listened to the market and then innovated. We need more automation and productivity. We need new ideas so printers can enter new markets. Suppliers are more than suppliers – they are partners to the printing industry.
Packaging printers
This market is robust because brand managers seek innovative packaging and graphics. Whether you are a flexo printer producing miles of flexible packaging, or a litho printer churning out miles of labels, or any kind of printer printing miles and miles of folding cartons, your success is tied to the ability of your equipment to print new and innovative formats, substrates, and graphics.
Speciality/niche printing shops
Niche markets are where the action is. T-shirts are moving from screen to inkjet printing. We can now print photos routinely. We can print on Christmas ornaments and footballs with new inkjet printers. Vehicle wraps let graphics become moving billboards. Flatbed inkjet printers print on thick glass and plastic. Giant signs can wrap buildings. Inkjet printing has engendered a new market and new profit potential for printers.
Frank Romano is professor emeritus, School of Print Media, Rochester Institute. He is widely acknowledged as a global expert in the field of printing and publishing.
