Pathways to Success in 2024
Charting the course to profitable success in 2024 will require print service providers to invest in staff, technologies, and tools to enhance productivity, address labor shortages, and meet ever-changing customer requirements.
A NAPCO Research report titled Production Digital Printing 2024: Pathways to Success in the Year Ahead identifies the principal trends that will influence the printing industry, the actions to pursue, and the role production digital printing can play in achieving success in 2024. The report is based on ongoing NAPCO Research surveys and highlights 11 key trends influencing competition, profitability, and investment in the year ahead.
Here is a summary of key trends featured in the report.
Investing in Employees Will Be Essential
Print service providers will need to have a strong focus on employee enrichment to retain and attract staff. In a 2023 NAPCO Research survey, commercial printers report the critical/moderate challenges they face are hiring production staff (65%) and hiring sales staff (62%).
More competitive labor markets will require print service providers to find ways to heighten their attractiveness to job candidates and current employees. Developing programs that invest in staff and offer more organized career paths can support employee retention and recruitment. Since many printing companies are faced with hiring people with little or no experience, training will also be essential.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Yield Benefits Across Organizations
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer systems or algorithms to imitate intelligent human behavior by using a range of technologies, including machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP).
AI is not new, but it is experiencing a resurgence and expansion in capabilities because of faster computer speeds, cloud services, opensource technologies, big data, and a widespread awareness in the general population. These factors are all fueling investment in AI and its ability to tackle more ambitious tasks.
In the printing industry, AI tools can support organizations across all functional areas.
In the printing industry, AI tools can support organizations across all functional areas, from operations to sales and marketing. As AI use spreads, it has the potential to automate processes never previously automated, to enhance management activities, and to support superior company-wide decisions. One thing is certain: AI can redefine everything.
Inkjet Advancing in Adoption and Applications
Steady advances in the quality and productivity of production inkjet presses are increasing their adoption and use in new applications. Here are the key areas production inkjet will influence:
- Commercial printers will continue to make the transition to inkjet. The PRINTING United Alliance’s 2022-2023 State of the Industry Report asked participants: “If you could make any capital investments you wanted over the next 12 months, what would they be?” Thirty-nine percent of commercial printers indicated that their investments would be in production inkjet.
- Sheetfed inkjet is making inroads in printing transactional documents. As the volume of printed transaction documents continues to decline (and organizations opt for digital alternatives), sheetfed inkjet is an attractive option. The majority of sheetfed production inkjet presses can match the output quality of offset and digital color presses, while offering the productivity required to meet customer turnaround and job volume requirements. According to IT Strategies, sheetfed production inkjet pages increased between 30% and 40% from 2021 to 2022, with transactional pages accounting for about 20%.
- Book work is moving from offset presses to digital devices. Inkjet presses have redefined the economics of printing books on demand in larger quantities, without sacrifices in quality. According to IT Strategies, the fastest-growing application for production inkjet is book printing.
- In-house printing operations are investing in sheetfed inkjet because it offers affordable color printing, attractive running costs, smaller footprints, substrate flexibility, and enhanced productivity. According to NAPCO Research’s 2023 Print Business Outlook Series: Equipment Installations and Applications at In-plants, 40% of in-house printing operations either expressed plans to invest in inkjet or have already made the investment.
- Photo products are a profitable inkjet application. Production inkjet presses are a competitive platform for offering photo specialty products. Historically, photo products have been produced on offset or liquid toner presses, or with traditional chemically based silver halide photo processing. Today’s inkjet sheetfed and webfed presses are capable of producing stunning prints and allowing print providers new entry points into this growing application area.
Automating Processes to Gain Competitive Advantage
Automation is a vital component for meeting customers’ productivity and service delivery expectations. Automated workflows can often lead to higher revenue because they allow companies to produce higher volumes of work more efficiently. A 2023 NAPCO Research survey of commercial printers reports various points of inefficiencies in workflows versus one or more dominant challenges. This finding points to the need to automate and explains why 66% of respondents in the same survey report taking action to automate their workflows.
Offering customized online storefronts/web-to-print capabilities is becoming a necessity.
Another area of automation is online ordering. Offering customized online storefronts/web-to-print capabilities configured to the specific needs of a customer is becoming a necessity for print providers. A 2021 NAPCO Research study sponsored by Canon U.S.A., Enhancing the Print Customer Connection, found that 85% of commercial print customers prefer providers with online ordering options and 73% select providers based on online submission capabilities.
A 2023 NAPCO Research study, Web Portals, New Path to Print Profitability, found that customized portals—which enable ordering everything from marketing collateral and direct mail to promotional products and digital marketing services—are key for print service providers in winning bigger customers, growing sales, and improving productivity.
Sustainability Is More Than Marketing
Recent NAPCO Research surveys of print users find sustainability is a key criterion when selecting a print provider, yet users don’t view print as sustainable. Consider the following:
- 80% of organizational decision-makers consider sustainability to be a key factor in print-buying decisions (Source: NAPCO Research Annual Commercial Print Industry Trends and Strategies Service, 2023)
- 91% of print users say printed materials produced by sustainable methods will be more important to their organizations in the future (Source: NAPCO Research Annual Commercial Print Industry Trends and Strategies Service, 2023)
- 74% of print customers believe print is not eco-friendly (Source: Propelling Your Business Forward in an Ever-Changing Competitive Environment, NAPCO Research, 2022)
To embrace real sustainability practices, print providers need to know what those are. Sustainability is a framework for operating a business based on people, planet, and profit. Being able to explain what your company has done and plans to do, along with supporting metrics, provides a powerful message to customers, employees, and the community.
Final Thought
Finding the best path forward begins with understanding the most influential market, technology, and customer trends and their unique implications for operations. Download the full report and use its trends, data points, and insights to develop strategies and support decisions for investing in operations, equipment, staff, and market expansion.
