If last year’s survey presented a rather mixed picture about the number of printers bringing finishing capabilities in-house, this year’s survey has clarified the picture: the number of services offered by printers has stayed largely static, allaying any fears among trade finishers of a rush of printers into their sector.

Rather, the picture that has emerged is one of growth in outsourcing work. This year saw significantly more firms spending over £50,000 on outsourcing than last year, with the number of firms spending over £1m annually on this increasing from 2% to 3.4% and the number of firms spending £500,00-£1m increasing from 1.5% to 4.8%. 

This perhaps comes as no surprise when annual turnover figures are considered. Whereas last year the largest proportion of printers still fell into the less than £500,000 a year bracket, of the 470 respondents this year, there are now almost as many companies (21.6%) turning over more than £20m annually, and notably more turning over between £5m-£20m.

In terms of the services being outsourced, it’s the usual suspects that dominate. Perfect binding is the most commonly outsourced service, followed by foil-blocking (38.5%), embossing (33.4%) and die-cutting (29.5%), which have all increased in popularity since last year. Unsurprisingly then, binding and die-cutting still represent printers’ biggest finishing expenditures, and spending on these services, along with foil-blocking, hand finishing and spot varnishing, has gone up.

There has, however, been a marked increase in printers carrying out certain services themselves. Last year’s survey reported a huge drop in in-house creasing, but this went up again this year, from 38.4% to 48.5%. This could perhaps be attributed to the relative simplicity of this process, especially for digitally printed products.

Meanwhile, there’s been a similar rise in the number of companies carrying out inserting in-house (from 29.7% to 39.5%), perhaps reflecting an increased demand for more individual mailing campaigns with a much faster turnaround.

However, it could be some time before we start to see other more complicated and machine-intensive processes brought in-house. Although the number of companies intending to bring finishing services in-house within the next six months has stayed the same, fewer are looking to roll these out within 12 months and more companies (6.1%, up from 3.9%), see investment in this area as part of a longer-term, two-to-five-year strategy.

THE SURVEY
Click on the links below to download PDFs of the results

1 Spends and timetable/respondent profile

2 In-house or outsource?

3 Costs and investments