Business Management – Market Research

As in-plants seek new service and product offerings to maintain their relevance to customers within their parent organizations, one service that should not be overlooked is cross-media marketing. Once implemented, it can allow them to capture a larger portion of their customers' total communications­—not just print.

The economy may be climbing slowly back, but the salaries of in-plant managers have shown only minimal improvement over the past two years. According to our biennial salary survey, managers' salaries have risen less than half a percent since our 2011 survey. The number who received no pay raise dropped from 40 percent in 2011 to about 29 percent this year.

What does the new iPad mean for the publishing industry? And what impact will it have on the further evolution of the eBook? Publishers can leverage the power of the iPad’s new hardware to create more impactful eBooks with enhanced interactive features

Our 2012 survey of government in-plants drew 62 responses, mostly from state and local government agencies. Comparing these results to our 2008 survey of this segment shows that the amount of four-color printing done by government in-plants has increased more than 32 percent, from 18.9 percent of their work to 25 percent. The number of government in-plants handling variable data printing also rose, from 52 to 57 percent.

Still one of the strongest parts of the in-plant industry, government in-plants are being challenged to get leaner and update their services. Our new survey of this sector shows an increasing number have added capabilities like wide-format printing, scanning/archiving, fulfillment and online ordering. They’re also doing more four-color printing and variable data to accommodate the increasing demand. 

AS WE start into 2012, it seems as if the printing industry, the country as a whole and even the global economy have been cast in a sequel to the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. The first draft of the script for the year ahead reads much like it did for the past two years.

At the INTERQUEST Digital Printing in Government and Higher Education Forum speakers from government and university in-plants discussed best practices at their operations. In between, principals from INTERQUEST—the market and technology research and consulting firm that organized the event—presented trends and research results.

THE GRAPHIC communications industry is in the middle of an evolution to expand services beyond print to include cross-media and marketing. Unfortunately, the in-plant market is largely absent from the move, according to an Info-Trends research study The Evolution of the Cross-Media Marketing Services Provider. The key barrier keeping in-plants from making the transformation is that they don’t understand why or how to offer cross-media marketing services.

There are some pretty large in-plants in North America. To find out who they are, we surveyed our readership. Not all of the largest in-plants replied, but most of them did, allowing us to create two lists, the largest in-plants according to the number of employees and according to sales.

Though the economy may be showing signs of improvement, the salaries of in-plant managers are still suffering. According to IPG's biennial salary survey, managers' salaries have gone down 3.17 percent in the past two years. What's more, a significant number (40 percent) received no pay raise in 2010. When we asked that question two years ago, only 17 percent said they got no raise.