The survey underlines that close to 70 per cent of respondents are seeing these trends increasing. The greatest pressure appears to be on faster turnaround, with 81.5 per cent stating that this is a growing requirement from clients.

Versioning and/or personalisation, online ordering and integration with other marketing collateral (such as direct mail) are also client priorities, with around half of printers reporting a trend in demand for these capabilities.

Marcus Timson, sales and marketing director at Fespa says, “The dynamics between clients and print service providers are clearly changing, but the most successful printers are adapting resourcefully, embracing digital technology and blending it creatively with other processes and value-added services to deliver the right solutions to clients’ challenges.”

Conducted in partnership with InfoTrends, the latest Fespa Worldwide Survey involved the largest research sample to date, attracting online responses from dozens of countries in Europe, Asia and North and Latin-America in February and March 2010.

All of the 582 respondents affirmed that the percentage of their revenue coming from digital projects will increase in the next two years, rising to close to 50 per cent of income for businesses with fewer than 100 employees.

This expected revenue growth is stimulating robust demand for new equipment, with 37.4 per cent of respondents planning to purchase a new wide format printer in the next 12 months, and a further 33.8 per cent still undecided about such a purchase.

More than half of respondents expect their spend on digital wide format media and consumables to increase in the next 12 months.

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