From an association perspective, our industry is pretty fragmented. There’s been some consolidation, of course, but for years, both service providers and suppliers to the industry have complained that there are too many associations and too many events. Most printing companies are forced to choose one or two of each—or none—and many suppliers are putting more emphasis on their own events and organizations in the form of users’ groups and special customer events. Yet suppliers still feel they must be represented at key industry shows. Is that changing? Are association memberships holding steady, declining, or growing? What kind of strategy changes can we expect moving forward? That’s what we set out to discover. It should be noted that we only spoke to associations and groups tied to the core commercial print market. When looking at the broader printing market, the industry is even more fragmented, with groups and events around packaging, textiles, functional print, and more. As both commercial printing firms and suppliers branch out into these adjacencies, there are even more demands on their time and resources.

That being said, these organizations offer tremendous resources, critically important in a time of rapid technological and societal change such as we are seeing today. Being aware of what is available and carefully selecting the groups and events that will help printing businesses—and suppliers to the industry—continue to grow and thrive is a smart strategy. No one has the time to attend all of the events or the resources to join all of the associations, but by being aware of what is available and judiciously taking advantage of appropriate resources, businesses definitely benefit. Keeping up with trends, knowing about the latest solutions, finding new business opportunities, learning how to optimize business and production processes, networking with peers, employee education—all of these are benefits these organizations offer. And they need the support of the industry to continue offering them.

Personally, I still believe there needs to be more consolidation, and if it is not voluntary, it will likely be involuntary over time. Several of our interviews reflected an opinion that the efforts of the printing industry, especially as they relate to being a collective voice for the industry in terms of government regulations and the value of print overall, are too fragmented and thus not as effective as they could be. One suggestion was that the industry would be better served by more engagement with the American Manufacturing Council, helping boost education about how important print is to the manufacturing industry (packaging, etc.). This would give the printing industry more powerful representation than its current fragmented approach.