Production Print Buyers Prefer Digital Printing to Offset Printing

By Pete Basiliere and Sharon McNee

2009 officially marks the beginning of offset printing’s long decline. Sure, some pundits predicted offset would some day give way to digital printing and have been voicing a “wait until next year” refrain for some time. But now the evidence is in.

The Gartner survey of production print buyers in the USA, France, Germany and the UK has found convincing evidence that, for the first time, long-held preferences for offset printing have been up-ended. Offset's dominance has been superseded by digital printing's quality and value for the money.

Our report, titled User Survey Analysis: Production Print Buyers Prefer Digital Printing to Offset Printing, is the first of three that is based on the significant depth and breadth of our major, recent research project involving production print buying and operations in the USA, France, Germany and the UK. Subsequent reports cover respondents' views on the Gartner’s Automated Document Factory 2.0 (ADF 2.0) architecture, print and mail disaster recovery, and the respondents’ perceptions of environmental, financial and other issues facing them.

Key Findings
Offset lithography has been the benchmark against which all other printing technologies have been measured. Refined over the decades, with numerous press, plate-making and ink technology providers continually improving their respective portions of the process, offset has been able to produce photo-realistic images on a wide range of papers and other substrates.

Yet for most of the past 20 years digital printing users have had to settle for the one benefit that offset could not match — the ability to economically produce runs as short as one piece. Nevertheless, digital print technology providers continued to refine their offerings with better imaging engines, improved consumables and better software. The result is that, for the first time, the people responsible for production printing overwhelmingly rank digital technologies above offset lithography.

On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is “poor quality” and 7 is “excellent quality,” we asked the respondents to rate the image quality of toner, liquid ink, inkjet and offset printing. With our large survey of 443 respondents, differences of as little as 0.10 are statistically meaningful. (In other words, the much smaller sample sizes commonly found in other surveys require a much greater difference in order to make a valid statement about the results.) With that in mind, note how much lower the survey respondents rated offset printing:

Toner — 5.68
Liquid Ink — 5.40
Ink Jet — 5.24
Offset — 5.17

The difference between toner (and, to a lesser extent, liquid ink) and offset is particularly significant. Inkjet is preferred over offset, but the difference is marginal, meaning the two are basically on a par according to the respondents. Inkjet technologies must continue to improve before there is a significant perceived quality difference compared with offset printing.

Interestingly, German respondents felt differently than those in the USA, France and the UK, actually preferring offset printing over digital printing by a wider margin than the other respondents' preference for offset. This difference may be attributed in part to the legacy of German print service providers using locally manufactured offset presses capable of producing very high-quality printing.

As with image quality, on a scale of 1 to 7 with 7 being the highest rating, respondents also perceived digital printing and in particular toner and liquid-ink printing to provide the best value for money. Note the difference:

Toner — 5.58
Liquid Ink — 5.29
Ink Jet — 5.23
Offset — 5.13

This trend was also reversed in Germany, where respondents held a much-lower regard for digital printing's value.

We expected print outsource providers would rate the print quality of offset printing higher than general respondents. This was not the case, however. Print outsource providers (sometimes called “print service providers”) rated offset print quality lower than the general respondent population did. Overall, print outsource providers also perceived toner printing to be the best value for money.

Methodology
Gartner conducted a telephone survey of 443 production print buyers from the four countries. Qualified respondents were either managing a production print operation, a senior-level manager overseeing the operation, or responsible for production print hardware and/or software purchases, enabling us to draw conclusions based on their knowledge of print quality and the importance of striking an appropriate balance between high quality and low cost per piece for their customers.

The majority of respondents worked in organizations with between 500 and 2,500 employees. These companies either have digital equipment on site, outsource high-volume work or do a combination of both.

Summary
For most of the past 20 years, digital print users have had to settle for the one benefit that offset could not match — the ability to economically produce runs as short as one piece. Fortunately, digital print technology providers continued to refine their offerings with better imaging engines, improved consumables and enhanced software.

The result is that, for the first time, Gartner has documented a major shift in digital print production buyers' perceptions of the quality of digital images and their value compared with traditional offset printing. The people responsible for production printing — your peers — overwhelmingly rank digital technologies above offset lithography in terms of not only the value for the money but also the quality of the printed image.

Gartner clients (and non-clients who wish to purchase a copy) will find the entire report at either http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt?gr=dd&ref=shareSummary&resId=848015 or by visiting www.gartner.com.