Question: Generally, how do you feel about the state of the industry going forward? What do you perceive to be the biggest challenges and opportunities?

• As our client base is all domestic, decline in the Canadian dollar only increases our cost. The overall economic condition doesn't allow passing all increases to client. Our margin has been affected. 2008 sales have declined slightly too. The 2009 challenge is to be able to keep the sales and margin unchanged.
• Our economy in Saskatchewan is still strong, so sales should continue.to grow. Suppliers from other areas that are going out of business will limit purchasing capabilities and some products being discontinued will be a challenge but it should be more of an inconvenience than anything.
• Biggest challenge: adapting to new technologies fast enough. Opportunity: digital applications (variable data, for example).
• There’s a transition that's going to happen that will see poorly run printers go under and the use of trade printers for newer operations with less overhead increasing.
• It is getting tougher. Surveys, like other items, used to be printed on paper. The pulp and paper industry and sawmills are getting destroyed in our area as well as the rest of Canada. Not only are they our customers, they are suppliers. The challenge will be to survive. It appears that the opportunities will be digital, short run and one-off products.
• Opportunity: grow business through others who have failed.
• The industry is very slow right now and competition is hard. Reducing pricing can help and our biggest challenge will be to bring in new clients.
• Very concerned. Biggest challenge: cash flow and getting appropriate financing.
• Holding on. Prepare for economic re-awakening.
• For the service-first shop the prospects are very good. Look toward merging with like-minded but differently equipped and skilled small business.
• Our biggest challenge will be the effect of the economy on our clients. If their business is affected negatively, then it will reflect on our business with them.
• Flop in the auto industry is affecting our business. We face the loss of approximately 40% of our business this year.
• Biggest challenges: the reduction of orders placed by long-term clients; the market shrinking even more then last year.
• Biggest challenges: staffing, labour, pricing pressure.
• There will be consolidation and more efficiency, and distinct competency will sort the wheat from the chaff. Trade printers with a low cost structure will prevail.
• Only the most innovative and cost-conscious will thrive.
• After more than 40 years in graphic design and printing, I've seen lots of ups and downs, however, I believe the industry will still remain strong. Biggest challenges relate to clients opting to use websites for promotion and advertising versus printed materials. Also the "do-it-yourself" promotion and advertising that many small businesses are getting into in order to "save" money. New technology to keep up-to-date can be quite expensive for small businesses. I feel there are opportunities to do promotional work for businesses and tourism in order to give them a competitive edge in today's uncertain marketplace. Effective design work, combined with skill, experience, practical solutions and realistic pricing will gain back clients' confidence.
• If we as printers and our vendors smarten up then the future is great!
• I think we're in for a slowdown in ads being booked, and requests for new designs. The biggest challenge will be convincing clients to spend more to promote their businesses.
• I believe this is going to be tough year. But not as bad as the media make it out to be. We need a dose of reality every so often.
• Cautious. The state of the industry will be directly related to the economic conditions over the next three to six months. The threat of new election could make economic conditions worse for Canada in the near term. Hopefully the government will be able to come up with a stimulus package to get the economy going. In the meantime: 1. We expect to see consolidation in the industry—increased activities in mergers and acquisitions and business closures and bankruptcies. 2. Tight credit and financing. Bad news for companies with tight cash flow constraints or weak balance sheets; good news is that it'll be harder for new competitors entering the market. 3. We anticipate price/margin erosion due to intensive price competition in a tough economy. Something has to give, ie., business closures and bankruptcies. We see opportunity to pick up customers due to business closures. 4. Retaining customers. Customers are more apt to shop around in tough economic times. Good opportunity to pickup new clients and shedding bad ones. 5. Lower Canadian dollar may help create U.S. sales opportunities.
• I believe everyone will be looking to cut costs. The U.S. dollar versus the Canadian dollar is causing large price increases at a time when they are hard to pass on.
• We’re not worried.
• There will be many bankruptcies in 2009-2010. Biggest challenge is finding young pressmen; biggest opportunity will be purchasing competitors.
• Challenge: increase sales opportunity; demonstrate the excellence of our company.
• I expect further amalgamation and to see many of the weaker companies fail. This will present opportunities for companies with healthy balance sheets. Companies that are using modern equipment and systems should do well.
• I think we will see some house cleaning and companies merging with competition.
• For our company, I foresee no problems because my customers are all service based. For advertising-based printers and printers dealing cross-border, I see problems for a least another year and a half. The dollar affects paper and commodities but it affects the industry as a whole so I don't see it being a big part of the equation.
• It’s a disaster.
• The industry is flat. Marketing in slow times will provide both challenges, financially, and opportunities.
• The industry should still go forward.
• Internet and elecronic media are both the challenge and the opportunity. Slow economy is the biggest immediate challenge.
• This industry is eating itself. There’s too much press capacity. Printers are trying to survive by lowering prices rather than increasing value added services.
• We will see increase in print on demand overall.
• I feel larger companies will suffer more as their overhead and fixed costs are so much greater. Stock costs and availability have become a greater challenge for smaller guys as minimum order requirements and surcharges are being applied. We do not have U.S. contracts but we do outsource to one U.S.-based company. Pricing has, of course, changed greatly with any work we are doing with them. We are currently looking for a Canadian supplier.
• It would appear that in Alberta we are in for a big downsizing. The economy is not all that stable.
• The west coast seems to have been less effected than central Canada. I think we will still see some market decline for six months before slowly getting better in the last half of the year.
• Slow year for 2009. Automation has created too much overcapacity.
• Cautiously optimistic. Overcoming all the negative press is a challenge. Good opportunities are there to invest in equipment, etc.
• Challenges: technology changes and keeping up.
• With technology and the marketplace changing so rapidly the big challenge is long term planning.
• Cash flow is a big worry; our clients are taking longer to pay.
• I feel that the current difficulties are not new and have been affecting us for some time now. Each time a company moves its production to China it removes a bit more work out of our market and, of course, the dollar has removed quite a bit of the U.S. work as well. Web presses are doing smaller runs now and that eats away at our higher-run book work, and digital is eating away at the lower runs. Add to that, the new presses drastically reduce the time required to produce work so there is a much larger printing capacity than there is work. This means that all of us printers are fighting over a much smaller pool of work. Printers have been able to scrape by over the last couple of years, hoping that others printers will close shop and reduce the competition, but I think you will find many will just give up over the next year. The companies that are in debt and behind in their payments will not be tolerated for much longer, forcing them to shut as well. If it happens soon, then the remaining printers will be in good shape. If they continue to hang in (the weak shops), it will just make all of the shops that much weaker. All print shops are not the same and we all seem to serve different markets. Some of us will be able to latch onto good accounts that are not affected but others will find the markets they serve will start to deteriorate. I expect Heidelberg to continue its downward spiral and would expect to see some major changes over the next couple of years. I think that they are too big and slow-moving to be ready for the big changes that are to come. (Heydays are over for these guys and it's all downhill for them now) The next year will be a tough one to watch as everything changes.
• It's important to develop and tap new markets.
• The industry needs to go back to the 1950s when it comes to ethics. We all need to work together to ensure mutual success and profitability. There is no point in underbidding a job you can't handle just to keep someone else from getting the work.
• General economic conditions will lead to even more competition and price-cutting.
• Challenge: finding reliable, good help.
• Challenges: tough competition, price wars, financing for new equipment or buildings.
• Looks like a good year coming up; I’m just finishing up my best year to date.
• This is mostly media hype. There will be the standard slowdowns in the first quarter, but sales should stay at least the same or a bit better than last year.
• I think the industry will weather the storm as always. Everyone will always need print for something. I believe we might see a different make-up of the printing companies that remain. Now is the time for our industry to take a look at how we are operating. Many of us have no idea how to properly cost a job, and forget about doing a cost analysis after. I believe that some of our biggest challenges will be ourselves as we fight for survival and lose sight of what really running a profitable company is all about.
• Challenges: risk of customers defaulting on payments of amounts owed; slowdown in business as general business activity slows.
• The companies that specialize in a few products, rather than a wide spectrum of industry, with a lean labour force will succeed.
• At the present time there are too many printers in Ontario, which is severely affecting profit margins. Biggest challenge is to get profit up. Biggest opportunity is ?
• Challenge: slow customers putting projects on hold.
• There are too many printers resulting in margins that are too low.
• Mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcy news will be prevalent. The strong will survive and prosper.
• It’s going to be a little tough. The biggest challenge is keeping present customers.
• There’s a lack of willingness to spend in the consumer economy.
• There’s too much hardware, to much competition, pricing is cutthroat. Credit has been too easy to get and there are far too many printers with way to much capacity. I also feel the web-to-print will help bring in a fair amount of new business for the specialty products that we sell. We have addressed a niche market and found it is working for us and we can compete internationally. I believe we lose a lot of the larger projects to China but their own demand will slow that down. To this date we are pretty positive about the coming year. But we are anticipating a slow start.
• Opportunities are not in traditional print, but rather in selling services and stock products; print to customers.
• Have a positive attitude and you will attract positive customers that will want to do business with you. The biggest challenge is how to better serve our clients.
• It will be difficult, but we will have to be smarter than our competition. Stay positive!
• Survival of the fittest. Life should be a lot better for those make it past this recession.
• The downturn in printing should eliminate a lot of printers who are low margin printers and poorly financed. This should bring capacity back for those left in the market. Retaining the equipment in the market can defeat some of this.
• We are in a tourist town in B.C. Even though tourism is down, the area had significant growth in the last few years. My company has benefited.
• The survivors will have to get their name out there to maintain business flow and we hope to help them do that by producing their signage.
• Biggest challenge: finding skilled people.
• There is far to much capacity! Many printing firms could fail or merge. Distribution of document via e-mail blasts or website downloads will continue to affect print volumes. Web-to-print and digital printing offer some growth potential.
• The industry will creep forward again; it always does. Challenges: Cope with dwindling sales. Cope with competitors giving things away. Opportunities: Obtain business from failed companies.
• If our business customers are having trouble with their business that will have an impact on our business.
• Moderate declines. Increasingly hard to find quality, trained staff.
• Very Positive. The biggest challenge is the labour force.
• I am staying hopeful that things will work out by summer.
• I believe there will be a reduction of printer in the GTA.
• Mid-size printers are in the most trouble. Trying to keep pace with technology by borrowing to buy new equipment will no doubt spell disaster for some.
• The industry is continuing to change: shorter runs, quicker response, price sensitivity in this economy. New business owners will not put up with waiting to fulfill orders—lead times are shorter and quality expectations are what they see on their own screens and desktop inkjets. Those who can respond to this demand will gain market share, those who can't will disappear. Businesses will not over-buy to meet minimum run scenarios—they want to buy only what they need immediately.
• I do not feel too good. I convince clients that print still has value.
• Difficult economic times, particularly with poor access to capital financing will cause a major shakeout. We will see fewer, better competitors in the future.
• Being a small- to medium-size printer I believe we are better suited to help those companies that are currently reducing costs and therefore the size of their press runs making us the place to go.
• I’m not optimistic. Our downturn started several months before the collapse in October. Many of the print products we offer are becoming obsolete and will be deleted due to the poor economy.
• Business will hold steady and increase moderately due to digital printing reducing cost of printing. Creative selling will be the rule.
• Which of the large suppliers we deal with will not survive? And how hard will it be to replace the gap.
• I feel the industry here in Southwestern Nova Scotia will hold its own. I believe there will be some ups and downs. At this time the lobster fishing industry is hurting and that has really been the mainstay of our economy but you have to seek other avenues, which, fortunately, we have done.
• We print plastic cards. The market for ID cards, gift cards, VIP cards, etc will grow moderately.
• At this point I feel the industry has pushed too hard for direct-to-plate and the technology is costly. The average printer still has negs and plates but we are finding it hard to get certain supplies. As a company that has been in business for over 60 years common sense is a rule of thumb. Do not jump on every bandwagon with new ideas and work within your means. In times like this current outlook, stick to what you know best and do it well.
• The biggest challenge is promoting a good product to the end user and working our way through the competitive maze.
• For the mid size shop, I think it will be ok...may be some tense times
• I think that we need to get positive attitudes and stop saying print is dead. It is alive and well.
• I am concerned, but optimistic. Biggest challenges are keeping profits up due to continued price increases from suppliers.
• Because of bad management the industry as a whole will suffer. Biggest challenge is to avoid cutting each other’s throat.
• I’m concerned about the slowdown. Margins are getting squeezed. Too few young people are entering the industry. Bindery lacks a formal journeyman training program.
• All companies are cutting back spending. We are for sure in for a tough year!
• Receiving any financing is a challenge. We have perfect credit and the finance companies say for the next two to three years, they are not lending out money for equipment.
• Computers have killed the short-run industry. I have been in the printing trade or over 50 years and I've never seen a slump in sales like this before.
• I feel that my business is going the way I like it to go: slow not too fast.
• Promotion and advertising is the first budget most companies cut. Which is wrong.
• We should get our governments under control, so they will stop hurting business growth.
• Be more than a printer, by offering new services and different approaches to our existing and potential prospects.
• Maturing market and overcapacity are making it tough.
• Business outlook: neutral. Biggest challenge: to make sure clients pay their bills in a timely fashion.
• Equipment manufacturers have placed too much equipment in the Toronto market and are subsidizing weak printers by allowing back-ended financing deals. This is putting downward pressure on print pricing because most printing companies are not disciplined in ensuring that they charge a profitable price for their products. Until excess capacity is eliminated or reduced, I do not see much improvement in the state of our industry. The credit crunch may end up being a good thing in our industry, especially if equipment manufacturers are not able to place their equipment with companies that do not have the financial resources and sales to support these investments.
• I’m a bit concerned but not overly pessimistic.
• Things will get very difficult but the businesses that have operated without extensive credit will continue to sustain themselves.
• In the past, in a recession, companies were prone to reducing marketing dollars. Now, a new way of thinking is to increase the awareness of consumers by maintaining or increasing marketing dollar expenditures.
• I think that business will be very difficult for specific sectors within the industry and or geographic regions (Oshawa, Windsor, etc.) but overall I don't see the bottom falling out completely. Financing will be a major issue for companies that are trying to buy new equipment or grow rapidly. I expect to see a number of companies closing or merging with competitors but this will help tighten up the market. The opportunities are great as well. Equipment, particularly used equipment, is cheap. Finance rates are very low. It's easy to get customers to talk to you when you tell them you might be able to save them money this year by reviewing all of their print purchases. Negative media is really making things worse!
• The industry is going to experience another year of tough competition between printers competing for sales. This will continue to push pricing to non-profitable levels. The challenge will be to find ways to reduce costs so as to remain profitable at these lower selling prices. Optimistically, the low value of the Canadian dollars will pull sales from the U.S.A. Hopefully, we will see the economy improve later next year and the printing industry usually experiences increased sales quickly as the economy improves.
• There’s a general lack of trust in the various government levels to make sound business decisions to keep our economy as strong as possible.
• If you offer good service, people will use you and the customers are there. Biggest challenge is for people not to pay too much attention to the doom and gloom in the media, and get to work giving good service.