IRgA Quarterly Index for the Reprographics Industry - Blog publisher's comments about the Index

 Recently, the IRgA began distributing a newsletter via e-mail, and, in the announcement about the newsletter, the IRgA said that this newsletter will be e-mailed out every other Friday.  This newsletter contains nothing more than an intro to news-items that’ve already been put up on the IRgA’s web-site.  This is a service for those of you who are too lazy to check the IRgA’s web-site.  If you weren’t so lazy, then the IRgA would not have to waste time duplicating efforts to get news to you.  Is this attributable to industry folks being lazy, or is attributable to significant apathy in our community?

The IRgA also recently announced that it will be publishing a quarterly index.  Before I go further about the IRgA’s Index, I’d just like to mention that the IRgA Index is not sanctioned by Reprographics 101!

Here’s what the IRgA says about this new Index:

IRgA is starting an important new research venture, and needs your help! The IRgA Index will be a new quarterly measure of the industry. The main component of the IRgA Index will be a compilation of data about member businesses.

We are seeking 50 IRgA members willing to anonymously answer a simple four-question survey:

1) Is your business up, down, or flat the AEC segment?

2) Is your business up, down, or flat in the non-AEC segment?

3) Are your equipment sales up, down, or flat?

4) What non-AEC vertical market are you currently most successful in?

We will email this survey each quarter to the participating member companies and compile the resulting data regionally. The data will be aggregated; no individual shop's data will be identified.

An index will be created with a simple mathematical formula that will create a number indicating the growth in a segment, just as the monthly AIA Billings Index does for the architecture business. An index of 50 will indicate no growth; anything below 50 will indicate shrinkage; and anything above 50 will indicate growth.

In addition, a number of external data sources will be concisely summarized each quarter, such as Census Bureau housing starts data, National Association of Realtors home sales data, and AIA data.

The result will be a "snapshot" view of the reprographics industry that combines member data with external data to paint a complete picture of the current state and likely growth of the reprographics industry. Over time the index will also provide a historical view of the industry.

Member companies that provide data for the survey, and all Bronze, Silver, and Gold members, will receive a more complete compilation of the data. If you are willing to participate, please email IRgA Managing Director Ed Avis.

My comments about the IRgA’s Index, not even seeing the first Index report (or the other reports the IRgA explains will be forthcoming):

1.    50 firms are not sufficient to produce an Index that provides useful, meaningful information about what’s going on, revenue wise, throughout the reprographics industry.  There are several hundred firms active in the reprographics business in the U.S.

2.    The questions asked by the quarterly survey are “too simple” to provide useful, meaningful information as to how the reprographics industry is fairing on an overall basis.  The only way to truly track how the industry is doing on an overall basis would be to track sales data, sales revenue numbers!  Given the questions that participating reprographers will be asked to respond to – “are your sales up or down” – how does the answer to that help anyone understand how the industry is doing?  If you have 50 participants and 2 firms each compete in 25 different markets and 25 say business is up and the other 25 say business is down, all that will likely mean is that they are exchanging market share in their markets; that does not shed any light on growth or decline in total industry revenues.

3.    Are we as an industry that ignorant?  Many reprographers are timid about participating in surveys that ask for their sales numbers.  Why is that?  I must be missing something!  Even though responses from individual companies would not be shared with anyone, even if they were how would that possibly cause injury to any company?  If I know your sales are $2 mil or $3 mil or whatever, does that somehow arm me to go after your sales?  I’d have to know who your customers are in order to attempt to take business away from you, and I’ve never seen any survey that asks survey participants to publish customer lists or sales reports by customer. 

4.    Several years ago, published reports indicated that reprographics industry sales amounted to approximately $5 billion annually.  It’s my belief that reprographics industry sales are now in the $3-3.5 billion annual range. Could be lower than that.  If the IRgA is going to provide a meaningful Index, then make that an Index that tracks total industry revenues.  Anything less than that is useless … and can prove to be very misleading, especially for reprographers who are trying to gauge the future of their businesses.

5.    NAR and home sales and home starts data are not meaningful indicators of reprographics industry activity.  Most of the volume reprographers do (or, should I say, did) comes from the non-residential sector, not from the residential sector.

I applaud Ed Avis’ efforts to compile and put out information that will help reprographers understand the health of their industry.  But, Ed has never been in the reprographics business himself, and it is, therefore, up to reprographers to tell Ed what type of information they feel will be useful and meaningful to them.  Ed is heavily influenced by the IRgA Board, but they should not be the only ones providing input to Ed on the makeup of an industry Index.  Reprographers, please engage with Ed.  He has repeatedly asked for your help and for your suggestions.

International Paper Closes Another Mill … Wake-Up Call for the Office and Commercial Printing Industry

This article comes from myprintresource.com and was authored by Jeff Hayes.

This article begins:

International Paper announced it will permanently close its massive Courtland, Alabama mill by the end of the first quarter of 2014.

Blog Publisher’s comments:

Reducing capacity used to be one way for paper companies to pretty much ensure that prices – and profitability for paper suppliers - would rise as demand outpaced supply.  But, “that was then” and “this is now”.  Now, you see paper companies reducing capacity because they expect less printing on paper.  Imagine that. 

Link to full article:

http://www.myprintresource.com/blog/11151924/international-paper-closes-another-mill-wake-up-call-for-the-office-and-commercial-printing-industry?utm_source=Wide-Format+Imaging+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GRVDB130919002

Marathon Reprographics vs. Rowe, IPlanTables, et al

My guess is that the only “winners” in this case will be the attorneys who represent the Plaintiff and the attorneys who represent the various different defendants named in Marathon’s case.  As is usually the case in most civil lawsuits!

Based on a bit of research I did today on Pacer.gov, the government-operated web-site where anyone can search for information about – and documents pertaining to - lawsuits filed in Federal courts, so far…

-Marathon filed a lawsuit against Rowe, IplanTables, and other named defendants.

-Whiting Turner filed a motion that the lawsuit against Whiting Turner be dismissed.

-Kevin Rowe (et al) filed an “answer” to the lawsuit and filed a counter-claim (counter lawsuit) against Marathon.

I’ve read some of the documents, and, if I decide to post the documents in my Google Docs library, I’ll update this post with a link to the documents.  Some of what’s in the documents makes for interesting reading!  If you want to read the documents before I get around to posting them in my Google Docs library, go to Pacer.gov and register for your own account.

NAPL 2013 State of the Industry Report Finds Dramatic Disparity in Companies' Sales Performance

From an article up today on myprintresource.com…..

NAPL 2013 State of the Industry Report Finds Dramatic Disparity in Companies' Sales Performance

Data from 300+ companies reveals a striking swing over last year as sales rise 21% for top fifth of survey group and fall nearly 15% for bottom fifth.

Blog publisher’s comments:

Some might say that the reason why larger printing companies have experienced sales growth, this year over last year, (as compared to smaller companies who’ve experienced sales declines, this year over last year) is due to larger companies taking advantage of, and/or implementing, advanced printing and workflow technologies.  I don’t agree with that, at all.  I say the reason is due mostly to larger companies slashing prices in an effort to maintain or grow their top lines, slashing prices regardless of the impact on their bottom lines.  I would think it would be obvious to all that printing sales, on an overall industry basis, are not growing; they are either stagnant or declining, due to a decline in demand for “prints on paper.”  Further, I’m not all that excited about the 21% rise in sales the top fifth experienced.  Las Vegas home prices have risen approximately 25% this year vs. last year.  But, they had fallen, from peak to trough, by 50-60%.  If you bought a home in Vegas in late 2005 or early 2006 (at the peak) and paid $500,000 for that home, by 2011-12 the value of your home dropped to around $200,000-$250,000.  And, so, if the value of your home increased 25%, 2013 vs. 2012, then your home is now worth around $250-$310k. Still way, way, way below $500,000.  Not much to celebrate about.  Demand for homes will increase over time, simply due to population growth.  Demand for prints on paper will continue to fall over time, simply due to digitization

Click on this link to read the article that’s up on myprintresource.com:

NAPL 2013 State of the Industry Report Finds Dramatic Disparity in Companies' Sales Performance