433 East Monroe
Good News for Manufacturers
When
planning our eighth annual Top 100 Manufacturers issue,
one of our goals was to present the “why”
behind the “what.” We aimed to go deeper
than just numbers and write about companies that lead
the pack in different categories. Also for the first
time, we asked manufacturers four open-ended questions
on the Top 100 listing form. Edited versions of insightful
answers run throughout our coverage, which begins on
page 29.
This
year, the “what” is good news: Manufacturers’
efforts to gain traction in a tough economy during the
past few years paid off in 2004. On average, Top 100
trade manufacturers in the printing and document management
industry increased sales by 4.7 percent compared with
their 2003 sales, the highest increase since 2000. (See
graph.) Nine firms on this year’s list achieved
20 percent growth or better.
One trend we noticed: Commercial printing augments many
manufacturers’ sales. The 10 companies reporting
the highest commercial printing sales in 2004 experienced
average growth of 20.1 percent. (Even if you remove
Ennis Inc.’s 141.9 percent growth from the equation,
the other nine top sellers of commercial printing experienced
average growth of 6 percent, still above the 4.7 average
for all Top 100 firms.)
Congratulations to the manufacturers on this year’s
Top 100 list—you deserve it.
Darin Painter
Managing
Editor
How
We Compiled This Feature
We
emailed Top 100 Manufacturers survey forms to DMIA members
as well as retired members, trial members and prospects
listed in our database as manufacturers. PDF and online
versions of the form were posted on Print Solutions’
web site at www.printsolutionsmag.com,
as well as the association’s E-Weekly newsletter.
The deadline to return the forms was Feb. 4. If your
company didn’t receive a form for inclusion in
this list and you would like one next year, please call
Print Solutions at (800) 336-4641 or send an email to:bholt@printsolutionsmag.com.
