But consider an outfit like the Ace Group. They started in 70’s as a type shop. They kept following their customers and trying to anticipate what they were going to do next. Just recently they executed the Time,Inc. “mine” magazine.

The problem I have with marketing services provider is that it is too vague and covers a host of sins. Job one is to be a great printer. That means lowest cost provider. Google invented a way to “give away the product” and make a gezillion dollars in the process. That’s a new business model.

Usually when a printer says a “new business model” they really mean, “how do I get more customers to use more of what I make.” That’s not business development, that’s more sales.

A new business model might mean something like selling spreadsheets and using the print to get the data. But that means networking with experts. Data analysis is hard for us, easy for someone. On the other hand, printing is easy for us and hard for mostly everyone else.

Easy for me, hard for you is always a good place to start.

Bill K. Toronto and Charles fairly well summed it up. Too many printers/overcapacity and the weak ones need to be allowed to pursue something else.

Those screaming that printing is a dead industry generally comprise that 20% who haven’t kept up with the latest and don’t offer anything that can’t be had from…China! Pocket-book patriotism fares better in a healthy economy when it doesn’t hurt.

The print industry is not dead. 30,000 print shops still open attest to that. If dead means that a failure to keep up with technology and all that that means, and overcapacity have conspired to drive prices into the ground and put the 20%’ers out of business, then yes the biz is dead for that group of operators.

Because one makes choices not to stay on the cutting edge of the industry, not to offer things that can’t easily be had overseas, and offer the exact same thing 29,999 other shops are doing….doesn’t mean an industry is dead. The real implication, the real problem, and the real blame is much, much closer to home.

Gina Danner has an excellent comment! We used to have a graphics gal that told customers they could have two of the three: price, service, or quality. I think she’s running a nudist colony in Austin, TX now.

The printing industry is not dead. Some of the old print-biz models/paradigms are. A failure to recognize the difference or an inability to act on it is fueling the consolidation, not a poor economy! If that were the case, all printing businesses, or at least a much greater share of them, would be facing the axe.

Some of the comments here is that “print is dead!”. I think to say print is dead is a bold statement considering the print industry has so many niches. If you were to say traditional offset litho is in the process of consolidation then you would be right, but to say digital printing is dead is a different matter. So many printing companies out there that have a business model entirely on print-on-demand and they are growing, its just a matter of abandoning the old traditional print business models and moving forward.

In previous blogs we have been talking about fallen leaders – companies that lead for a decade but emerged from the last recession weaker – and the possible lessons learned that we could apply to our current recession. We suggested a relationship between investments, new products, leader status and then a decline related to excessive debt. As a result, we are starting to look for the common denominators that make up “sustainable leaders” and those that result in “fallen leaders.”

Impacting this fallen or short-lived leader status may be a combination of changes in the economy such as the impact of a recession and debt. John Hyde, NAPL Vice President and Senior Consultant sees this problem often in his merger and acquisition work. John works with clients on ownership strategy, debt restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions everyday.

According to John, “For the past several years, NAPL research and anecdotal experience among consultants indicated that leading companies comprised about 10% of the industry. However, it seems that some leaders have fallen into harder times in the last and current recession. As a result, I’d say that leaders are now 5% of the industry. What’s the common thread among the former leaders that have gotten into trouble or went out of business? The biggest two factors are owners facing distractions and too much debt.”



That segment of the printing industry with healthier balance sheets appear to be investing (as in on-going) in the IT application learning curve, distinctive apps software with economy of scale leveraging potential, and outsourcing relationships with vendors who have the heavy duty digital engines on their floor and lots of opportunity capacity. As volume builds these printers can then add the hardware.

Every industry is constantly being redefined. Unfortunatly the printing industry is full of owners who grew up in the industry and don’t have a solid financial understanding of how to acquire equipment with a viable plan to generate a profit. It is almost as if the industry is full of a bunch of boys want bigger toys so instead of buying the new car… they buy the new press.

The industry as a whole needs to decide that the old ways are gone and a new paradigm is needed.

Seems people like to do a lot of scoffing and eye-rolling around here, and we tend to forget that printing is, essentially, a helpful, supportive industry.

We need to work on strategies for getting not just ourselves, but our customers (see bankruptcy-prone industries 1-9) off this stupid list, and although I know it’s a contentious topic, more complete marketing service offerings can help us do this. Instead of looking at becoming a ‘Marketing Service Provider’ as an awkward, unwieldy step for printers, we should look at it as a way of analyzing the needs of our customer base, and providing for THEM.

That’s how my company stays strong. Dead horse-free for 10 years and counting!