Pittsburgh, PA, February 12, 2007 -- PIA/GATFPress is pleased to announce the release of the new edition of Keys to Profitability: Strategic and Operational Characteristics of Printing Industry Profit Leaders, from the PIA/GATF Economics and Market Research Department. Keys to Profitability is written by PIA/GATF’s Ronnie H. Davis and Ed Gleeson and is the perfect companion piece to the annual PIA/GATF Ratios, which have tracked the numbers of profit leaders in the printing industry since 1921, or can be used alone as a tool to understand how high performers distinguish themselves from the rest. This report goes beyond the numbers reported in the Ratios and instead offers an in-depth examination of the wide variety of strategic practices, operating characteristics, and processes that allow industry profit leaders to achieve such numbers and offers exhaustive data, easy-to-read charts, and in-depth analysis on all of the following topics: The sources of superior performance Performance indicators for profit leaders and profit challengers Profit leading strategies The operating keys of profit leaders—how they’re “doing things right” Providing useful and efficient ancillary services to customers Advice on setting strategic priorities A list of benchmarks achieved by profit leaders According to Davis, “Year after year, the PIA/GATF Ratios provide dramatic proof of the continuing gulf between profit leaders and profit challengers in the printing industry. Profit leaders (those firms in the top 25 percentile of profitability) typically earn ten to twenty times as much profit per dollar of sales as profit challengers (the other 75% of printers). This study takes a deeper look behind these numbers and identifies six key strategic and operational characteristics that give profit leaders their competitive advantage. Printers can use this information to vastly improve their bottom lines.” Davis has served as chief economist of PIA/GATF since 1988. He earned a Ph.D. in economics with a specialization in industrial organization from the University of Pittsburgh and is the 2005 recipient of the Neil Richards Visionary Leadership Award for applying innovative, futuristic thinking to the graphic arts industry. Gleeson is PIA/GATF’s manager of Market Research. He holds a B.S. degree from John Carroll University. Before coming to PIA/GATF in 2005, Gleeson worked as a market research analyst for FTN Midwest Research, an institutional equity research firm. Keys to Profitability: Strategic and Operational Characteristics of Printing Industry Profit Leaders is available in either print form (Item No. 00FM07027) or PDF form for immediate download (Item # RAT07027PDF). The report is available for $150; the discounted PIA/GATF member rate is $75. Keys to Profitability and PIA/GATFPress’s nearly 200 publications are available online at www.gain.net, or by phone (toll-free 866-855-4283), fax (301-393-2555), or mail (200 Deer Run Road, Sewickley, PA 15143).