By Ed Avis
There is a lot of uncertainty in the world at the moment, but evidently not in the reprographics industry. An IRgA survey in late November revealed that most reprographics professionals are pretty confident that 2025 will be a good year.
Twenty-three people responded to the survey, and 14 of them – nearly 61 percent – chose the answer, “I'm pretty optimistic -- business will be somewhat better” to the question about their opinion on business in 2025. Another 13 percent said, “I'm very optimistic -- business will be much better,” which means nearly three-quarters of respondents are feeling positive about 2025.
Only 2 respondents said they feel business may drop. The rest said they think business will be flat in 2025.
Some Concerns Remain
These overwhelmingly positive responses don’t mean reprographics professionals don’t have concerns. Another question in the survey asked what their concerns are, and many respondents are worried about certain issues.
For example, when asked about growing their sales, half of the respondents said “I’m very concerned” and the other half said, “I’m somewhat concerned.” Another concern is employment: 36 percent said they are “very concerned” about finding and keeping employees, and the same number reported that they are “somewhat concerned” about that issue.
The increased cost of media and other consumables was the next greatest concern: Nearly 8 out of 10 respondents are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about that problem. A very similar number of respondents are concerned about “improving our business practices” in 2025.
How Was 2024?
Naturally, the survey also asked respondents to report how 2024 has been for them, compared to 2023.
The winner? Large-format color graphics. Sixteen percent said business in that area was up more than 50 percent over 2023, and another 42 percent said sales were up, but less than 50 percent. Only 10 percent said sales were down at all.
Interestingly, plan printing – traditional AEC reprographics – was the next best business category. Nobody said it was up more than 50 percent, but 24 percent said sales were up less than 50 percent and 57 percent said sales were flat. That means 81 percent said sales did not go down, which clearly contradicts the common wisdom that plan printing is going the way of the dinosaur.
The biggest loser was equipment sales and leasing. Forty percent of respondents said sales were down in that area, and the same percentage said sales were flat. Only 20 percent saw growth in that area.
A final question asked people what IRgA services they used in the last year. The big winner was IRgA Today newsletter – 84 percent said they read it. Next most popular was IRgA webinars – 53 percent attended at least one or watched a recording of one.
The IRgA Board uses this information to decide what services to offer, so stay tuned for information about programs for 2025 that help members grow their sales (such as the new Scanning Marketing Program) and deal with the problem of finding employees.