Through the wonderful help and support of fifteen regional printing associations, we started conducting the PIPI (Printing Industry Performance and Insights) studies about two years ago. Wow! – time goes by. Our process has evolved a bit. However, our goal hasn’t changed. We aim to provide you (printing company leaders) with actional advice and knowledge, tools for your management/leadership toolbox.
To provide you with more actionable knowledge, I collaborate with other professors to design the PIPI studies and write our reports. After dissecting the data, my colleagues help me answer questions like: So what? What are the helpful takeaways? What does this mean to printing firm leaders? And what other suggestions might we share with printing firm leaders relevant to the topic we explored? The professors who help me with the PIPI studies bring valuable knowledge from their fields of study. For instance, in our recent paper supply study, supply chain professors were very helpful in producing actionable knowledge. Economic, human resource, and strategy professors have also contributed to our recent PIPI studies, and we hope to engage leadership professors in future work. Engaging other business professors helps provide you with actionable knowledge, which, in turn, provides you more tools and sharper tools for your management toolbox.
PIPI conducts three surveys per year. We aim to make the PIPI surveys more concise and focused, so here’s our plan for the three PIPI studies we plan to conduct each year:
- February: Build industry financial benchmarks to which you can compare your numbers. This information will assist you with budgeting and developing strategies to enhance financial performance.
- May: Explore relevant management topics, such as strategic planning, leadership, human resources, operations, and others, specifically focusing on our industry. Relevant topics we’ve recently addressed include effective recruiting approaches, how to best manage paper supply chain issues, and what management practices, when combined, produce the best performance.
- October: The economic environment, how it is affecting our industry, and printing company leaders’ future business outlook. From this knowledge, you can compare your sales trends to related firms. Also, you can view the big picture of business outlook among printing firm leaders. Seeing this view of the printing industry outlook may help you in making investment decisions, such as new equipment, facility expansion, or acquiring another firm.
Our industry is very diverse, including label printers, commercial printers, digital printers, web printers, and others. In our PIPI studies, we explore topics from the view of different printing industry segments. From this approach, we seek to provide you with actionable knowledge that fits your firm.
How to use PIPI reports in your firm?
Ask your leadership team to review the report and think about these questions:
- What in the report is relevant to us?
- Where are we now regarding the topic addressed in the report?
- What, if any, changes should we consider?
We much appreciate your participation in our PIPI surveys. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email me at ralph.williams@mtsu.edu
Dr. Ralph Williams has years of leadership experience in the print industry, including as a business owner. Ralph earned a Doctorate in Business Administration from Kennesaw State University and now serves as an Associate Professor of Management at Middle Tennessee State University. He teaches strategy, entrepreneurial financial management, family business, and management principles. Ralph works with printing industry associations to conduct and provide insightful industry studies (PIPI: Printing Industry Performance and Insights).
