As the print industry matures and print volumes are threatened by alternative media, print service providers must reexamine and reengineer their basic business models and operations protocols to adapt to the changing business climate. For the savvy print service provider, revenue growth and increased profit will be dependent upon two critical factors: cost reduction via the introduction of new workflow efficiencies, and an expanded portfolio of higher-margin value-added services. Although better/faster/cheaper presses, digital printers, and pre-and post-printing devices will certainly play a significant role in advancing both of these objectives, it will be the software driving these devices, as well as other software solutions up and down the value chain, that will provide differentiation to the print service provider and the solutions vendor.

In late 2004, InfoTrends/CAP Ventures conducted a landmark study on the print production software market.  The study entitled, The Global Print Production Workflow Market: Enabling Fundamental Business Change in Graphic Arts is the first of this magnitude to examine this growing market.

Research for this study consisted of telephone and Web-based surveys of software and solutions vendors as well as print service providers. Below are just a few of the key findings.

The Global Production Workflow Software Market

InfoTrends/CAP Ventures estimates that worldwide production workflow software solutions tracked in our study represented a $5.9 billion market in 2003. Print controllers and RIPs for digital devices accounted for the largest portion of this market at just slightly over $2.0 billion. Production-class creative applications also composed a sizable segment of just under $1.5 billion.

North America was the largest geographical market for print production software in 2003, accounting for 46% of all revenues. Western Europe accounted for over one-third of revenues and Japan came in third, accounting for 10% of the market revenues.