Cary Sherburneer:  Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I’m here with Andy Gordon, who is Manager of Business Intelligence, from Océ.  And Andy, you also do some volunteer work with one of our very important industry organizations, PRIMIR.  You could tell us first what your role is at PRIMIR and then explain to our audience who PRIMIR is if they are not familiar with them. 

Andy Gordon:  Sure, thanks Cary.  It’s good to see you. 

Cary Sherburneer:  It’s good to see you too. 

Andy Gordon:  Thanks.  PRIMIR is the printing industry’s market information and research organization and in addition to co-chairing a number of the studies that PRIMIR produces.  I’m also the chair of the Executive Committee. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Okay.  And PRIMIR is part of…

Andy Gordon:  PRIMIR is part of NPS. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Okay. 

Andy Gordon:  And it is a member organization of Technology Vendors, sub straight companies, and print providers.  We have a number of very high profile print providers that are members.  And we get together and pool our money to procure studies.  So we actually will develop the RFP’s and we go out to the industry to the other consultants and we try to identify who is the right consultant to produce the studies for us.  And we have a number of very interesting studies that we produce.  In the past, we have done studies on electronic displacement of print and print originators, which I believe you were involved in. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Yeah, I was involved in, yeah. 

Andy Gordon:  Which was a wonderful study. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Thank you. 

Andy Gordon:  We’ve done recently, one on the book industry and we’ve got a couple coming up that are getting ready to be published, one on direct marketing and the mega trends and digital trends application study, which we are here to talk about today. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Okay.  Great.  And so in terms of the latest one, the digital print study, maybe you can tell us about what are some of the top objectives.  What were you looking at out on the market, obviously digital printing is here so we know that, so there must have been some deeper objectives that you were after. 

Andy Gordon:  Oh sure.  You know, a lot of the research we have in the industry right now in digital printing has been focused on some key segments of the market, but not on applications and so what we wanted to do with the study was to really take a deep dive into the applications.  And so we looked at applications, anything from catalogs and newspapers to manuals, direct mail postcards, books, marketing collateral and really looked at what’s happening.  The trends within that application segment and also trying to identify if there are any tipping points occurring between analog to digital print technology. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Okay so in other words, if I just pick books, for example, that you would be looking at under what conditions people are using, digital print versus offset, how much of that volume is migrating to digital, those kinds of things. 

Andy Gordon:  Why they’re migrating, what are the barriers? 

Cary Sherburneer:  And how fast they’re going to migrate. 

Andy Gordon:  Right, right. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Future to – a little future to look at because usually you guys look at a fairly substantial period of time.  Was there a specific time frame associated with this? 

Andy Gordon:  So there was a five-year horizon on this. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Five-year horizon, okay. 

Andy Gordon:  So then we also wanted to know what conditions were necessary to help to accelerate that transition. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Okay. 

Andy Gordon:  It’s a great study. 

Cary Sherburneer:  I’m sure it is.  Can I have one?  Now these studies are free, all your studies are free – or are part of the PRIMIR membership, right. 

Andy Gordon:  That’s right. 

Cary Sherburneer:  And then other people can purchase them if they’re interested. 

Andy Gordon:  That’s right.  So PRIMIR produces on average between $500,000 and $600,000 worth of research every year. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Wow. 

Andy Gordon:  Which can be anywhere between five and seven studies. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Okay. 

Andy Gordon:  And, yes, that’s available to the members.  One of the nice benefits of membership with PRIMIR is not just receiving the studies, but also being part of the process of identifying what the key topics are going through the RFP development, working with the consultants as well as the final presentation of the results. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Right, right, because they don’t just get this big handed to them, they actually have an opportunity to hear it presented firsthand and interact with the consultants. 

Andy Gordon:  So as you know, we actually have several meetings a year; at this point it’s thee meetings a year.  And we get together with our colleagues in a non-competitive environment and we try to understand what the results are and how it impacts the industry as well as our businesses.  And that really is a wonderful environment to share ideas and to understand how we can move forward as an industry. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Yeah, it’s a great service for the industry and if people aren’t a member of the organization, they can go to PRIMIR, P-R-I-M-I-R, Primir.org. 

Andy Gordon:  Thank you Cary. 

Cary Sherburneer:  Thank you.