PIW, Printing Industries of Wisconsin, recently published their "highlights" from the Pira International report on the future of Global Print. The findings come as no surprise to most of us, but PIW felt that we members must understand them as they impact our domestic print industry. Since I have been on the bandwagon, and on the record as agreeing, I will pass them on with comments.
The highlights are: 1) The GLOBAL print market is forecast to grow by 18% to $721 billion by 2011. 2) The fastest growth is to be in emerging countries, and will adversely affect us domestically where consolidation and reduction will continue. 3) Free trading and the growth in under developed countries will adversely impact those in developed countries. 4) New print technology will serve to keep print more competitive and will be crucial to developed countries. 5) By 2011, digital printing will have a 21% share of the market. 6) India, Russia, and Venezuela will be the fastest growing print markets.
Once more, I feel compelled to ask, what are we doing about this domestically? Where is our future? How will we compete? How are our development dollars being spent?
My fear is that it is, all too often, more of the same. Let's keep on doing what we're doing, feeling secure in little change, and hoping that we'll have time to react when the time comes. Let's not embrace and invest in digital the way we really should; we'll have time later.
Well, some of us will, and some of us won't. I want to be in the former group, not the latter. Am I a doomsday zealot? How about you?
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