Margie Dana

Industry Guru Frank Romano Guides Us

I’m fairly choosy about signing up and actually “attending” webinars. Sure, there are plenty that interest me. Somehow when the time comes, I’m in the middle of an assignment that I don’t want to interrupt.

But when Frank Romano speaks, I always listen. Recently he was the star of a webinar sponsored by Techkon, in which he shared his print industry predictions. (I must say, he looked relaxed and quite professorial in that big leather chair. Nice touch!)

“Printing does have a future,” Frank opined. And…..he was off!

Here’s what I learned from Frank Romano that day:

The year 1995 was key for the U.S. printing industry. It was when we had the most printing companies – 65,000. We began to lose printers as the Internet came about. Today we have about one half that number of printers – about 31,000, and Frank predicts that number will sink another thousand or two over the next few years and will then level off.

What will this streamlined printing industry look like? It will comprise more automated and technologically advanced firms. It’s what Frank called the “new world of print.”

I noted the most interesting questions from webinar attendees (I want to mash these two words into “webinees”). Here they are.

1. What can printers do to stay competitive?

Frank’s answer was direct and rather simple (though not easy):

Change. Be very efficient. Automate to the highest possible degree.
Do things that are different. For instance, you need advanced finishing equipment. You can’t just offer to sell print anymore. Sell programs! Wide-format inkjet was an example he gave here, noting that more customers are looking for it, and more printers should be offering it.

2. Where do you see the industry in 2023?

Frank: A lot depends on the global economy. It’s going to be a tough decade, and a lot of marketing people currently have no concept about print. Many marketing schools are still teaching marketing the old way. We need to bring them up to speed.

Old timers in the industry understand how to buy print. The new businesspeople? Not so much.

3. What’s the outlook for offset vs. digital?

Frank: Offset will go down to 40% (of all print produced) in North America. Digital will be a bit more. We’ll still have flexo, gravure and screen, though that’s being replaced by inkjet. The biggest problem with offset is make ready. New presses take care of this, though many printers can’t afford to replace old equipment. Most offset press manufacturers are looking to partner with digital in some way.

4. What’s your take on the paperless debate?

Frank: It’s not a debate. You’re not going to stop the forces of electronic communications. Wang said offices would be paperless in the early 1970s. Offices today are Wangless, not paperless. It’s foolhardy to fight the paperless sayers. We have to find a way to get paper into the mix. We should help printers understand where new markets are. But some markets are going away – Variety just announced its print edition is going to weekly, not daily.

The print industry should be fighting the postal service instead! We have some serious problems out there, starting with this one.

We need to help printers find new markets. The future is going to be in new markets on lots of substrates.

5. Where would you look to find new markets?

Frank: I’d buy a wide-format inkjet printer. Printing on paper has become a commodity. Another market that’s evolving is printing on fabric. If you can print on tons of substrates, you can still print on paper.

He also touched on packaging. “The packaging market can only be a growth market. It will always be an analog market.” Run lengths in packaging are getting smaller. There will continue to be more localized brands, more specialized brands, and the look of packaging is changing more often now, too. “Packaging will engender all kinds of opportunities for printing – and I mean offset and gravure and digital and inkjet.”

This webinar was fast moving, chock full of facts, predictions, and new ideas for companies in the print industry. I hope it was well attended by printers.

And I hope they took good notes.