Many people in this industry would agree that printing has changed substantially over recent years and much more change is coming our way. It’s like the saying, “the only constant is change itself.” The pace of change, not only in the printing industry but in the entire business world, has accelerated.

The biggest change to occur to printing over the last 400 years (i.e., since Gutenberg) is that the industry is no longer growing faster than the economy. In the Printing Industries of America’s (PIA) comprehensive study of the North American printing industry, Vision 21, two major findings emerged. Number one: in the early ’90s printing began to grow slower than the economy for the first time. After 400 years, printing had become a mature industry.

Number two: the discovery that printing will continue to grow but will also continue to change at an increasing pace. Different sectors of the printing market will shift, contract or grow faster than ever before. The study attempts to predict where various printing sectors will go in the next five to six years. The problem is that to predict where printing is going, you also have to predict where the business world and the economy are going—a near impossible task.

But the real question for most printers is how to capitalize on changing markets. And the approaches employed in this industry are dramatically different—some as much as night and day.

There’s one group of printers that tends to rationalize the industry slowdown. Unfortunately, this tends to be the most popular approach, and one often hears laments like: customers don’t have any loyalty anymore; there’s too much iron in the industry; printing has become a commodity; customers only buy on price and the other guy is giving it away. The list goes on.

Many of these complaints ring true, especially for printing companies that have failed to evolve in a changing market. In a slower-growth market the rules that worked in booming times don’t work anymore. All the rationalizations in the world will not fix the problem. Printing is now a mature market, but it is still an industry that no single company or group of companies can dictate to or control. The industry is still market-driven and must respond to market imperatives.

The second group of printers are those who analyze. They find out what has changed and why, and they do something about it. They find profitable niches in the market and they differentiate themselves from everyone else.

One of the most significant things analyzers do is turn problems into opportunities. If customers are no longer loyal, they find out why. Lack of time? Technology getting too complicated? Are customers becoming more demanding? Find out the problem and solve it. That’s what opens up new markets. If customers need more than printing to meet their goals, provide the necessary added-value services.

The PIA Vision 21 study talks of printing not as an isolated industry, but as a part of the media industry. The real profitable growth in the printing business will come from add-on services. The ability to recognize changes in the market and capitalize on them will give the printers who analyze the advantage over the printers who rationalize about why things are not working any more.

We have definitely entered one of the worst of times for printing, but there are also more opportunities than ever.