Producing bills, statements and other transactional
documents was one of the earliest applications of high-volume digital printing
and today remains an important market for digital providers. INTERQUEST
estimates that transactional printing generates more than one-quarter of all
digital impressions produced in North America. So where is the transactional
market in light of the recent recession and the ongoing trend towards
electronic delivery? INTERQUEST recently conducted in-depth interviews with
major transactional providers in North America to better understand these and
other issues impacting transactional printing. The findings are published in
their report, "North American Transactional Printing: Market Update and
Forecast (2009-2014)."
Although the recession has impacted the entire printing
industry, digital print providers in general have fared somewhat better than
conventional printers, and transactional printing — despite the dramatic hit to
the finance industry — has done better than other sectors, such as direct mail
advertising. Transactional printers have not been unscathed, however, as
customers demand deeper price concessions and reduce the page count and
frequency of many transactional mailings. Most troubling is that the recession
seems to have given transactional mailers an even stronger push towards
electronic delivery as a cost-saving alternative to print.
Overall, we project that transactional print volume will
decline at an annual rate of about 2.5% from 2009 to 2014. Black-and-white and
highlight-color transactional output will decline somewhat faster, while
full-color transactional impressions will grow by nearly 26% annually over this
period.
Full-color transactional printing is growing aggressively
as print quality improves, and the cost to produce it decreases. We find
full-color transactional output used for three main reasons:
- To eliminate preprinted forms — Color is used
to produce logos and other static elements, which were previously preprinted.
Most of this variety of output is currently produced on high-speed inkjet
presses.
- To enhance transactional documents — Database-driven,
full-color charts and graphics are used to make the content of a transactional
document more explicit or improve customer service in some manner. Because of
the quality requirements and shorter run lengths, most of this output is
produced on full-color, toner-based equipment.
- To use transactional documents for marketing purposes (i.e., TransPromo) — Single-pass, full-color, variable content is used to promote a
product or service on a transactional document. The promotional content is
typically tied to customer data. As with the elimination of preprinted forms,
most of this output is currently produced on inkjet presses.
Our surveys of the market find that TransPromo is, indeed,
growing aggressively, but that most of that growth is concentrated in the hands
of a few, very large producers. This will undoubtedly change over time as more
printers (commercial and in-house) acquire the latest generation of high-speed
continuous-feed inkjet presses. According to our study, about half of the
organizations that produce full-color transactional printing also produce
TransPromo applications. Furthermore, these respondents predict their
TransPromo work will grow at an annual rate of more than 40%.
We project growth in the range of 30% per year for
TransPromo printing over the next few years. It is still at an emerging stage,
so positive adoption with be reflected in a high growth rate. Yet the
technology is available, many service bureaus are committed to the application,
and an increasing number of transactional mailers seem to realize the benefits
of merging promotional and transactional content. The window of opportunity for
this application, however, will not stay open forever as electronic delivery
alternatives steadily erode hard-copy transactional output. Although electronic
diversion will chip away, transactional printing remains for now one of the
largest market segments served by digital production printing, and one poised
for significant change in the near future.
DAVID DAVIS is a director for INTERQUEST, a market and
technology research and consulting firm focused on the digital printing
industry. For more information or to order the INTERQUEST study "North American
Transactional Printing: Market Update & Forecast (2009-2014)," call
434-979-9945 or visit www.inter-quest.com.
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