I have just read a very interesting article by Professor Frank Romano of Rochester Institute of Technology covering the future of print. Professor Romano is a very well known and respected authority and his writing has a strong influence on the ongoing thinking of executives within the North American printing industry. In this article he looks at the changes that have taken place over the past 50 years in printing companies, and identifies that in that time the revenue mix of a printing company has changed. He indicates that today, in the USA, only 80% of a printing company’s revenue comes from putting ink on paper. The rest is from new services such as multimedia or fulfillment.

Professor Romano also points out that when the real change that came about with the Internet happened, few printing companies were aware of the impact of this as it was in a boom time for print, when overall revenues increased. With the recession of the past few years printers have become very aware that the demand for printing has dropped, but for many it is too late to do anything about it as they have not invested early enough in these changes.

Romano points out that much of the reduction in demand for print has come from new working practices brought about by new communications approaches. A key element in this has been the rise of e-mail as a form of communication. It is estimated today that 45 billion PDF files move over the Internet annually, of which 33 billion are sent as e-mail attachments. If one adds all the other electronic files such as Microsoft Word, etc that are transmitted, Romano estimates that there could be some 300 billion electronic pages that are transmitted annually.