Commercial print has been shrinking for years, and Marco Boer does not sugarcoat that reality. As vice president of IT Strategies and a nearly 40-year veteran of the industry, Boer has spent decades helping manufacturers like HP understand where print is heading and why.
His view: Traditional commercial print is consolidating fast, offset volumes continue to decline and about 3%–4% of print providers disappear each year across both the U.S. and Europe. But the businesses that remain are often stronger, leaner and far more capable.
Marco explains that many private-equity firms see print as a cash-generating business with operational inefficiencies that can be fixed. When investors acquire multiple companies in one market, they eliminate duplicated departments, improve purchasing power and force sharper financial discipline. It creates pressure, especially for smaller PSPs, but it also pushes the industry toward smarter operations and better decisions.
That same mindset drives his strongest argument for digital print. As run lengths continue shrinking — from thousands of sheets to hundreds — the economics of offset become harder to justify. Marco points out that waste that once felt normal suddenly looks expensive. He points to the example of offset makeready waste and how digital presses remove much of that friction. Combined with job-level profitability dashboards and better production data, printers can now see which jobs actually make money instead of waiting until month-end to find out.
Marco also sees self-service ordering portals as one of the biggest opportunities for profitable growth, especially for printers serving small businesses. AI-assisted preflight, upfront payment and low-touch ordering allow short-run work to scale without unnecessary labor. Many printers say they have portals, but Marco notes that top leaders treat them as core infrastructure. The less friction in ordering, the stronger the economics become.
Despite tariffs, rising paper costs and shipping inflation, Marco remains optimistic about what he calls the “haves” — companies with strong balance sheets, clear strategy and the discipline to keep reinvesting. He points to HP Indigo users adopting high-productivity technology like the V12 label press as proof. When printers recognize real opportunity for gains, they do not hesitate to double down, and many already have, he says.
