Profits Data Show Resilience of Leading Print Firms
The PIA Financial Ratios have been published for decades, and may be the
most recognized of the association’s publications. There are, of course,
problems with all kinds of research gathering efforts, but the positives of the
Ratios reports outweigh the negatives from a methodological standpoint. Sure,
the Ratios are not based on a carefully selected sample of printers, but are of
the voluntary participants who pay to participate. Different firms participate
each year, so it’s not a longitudinal study of the same groups of printers, but
enough do to make it interesting. There is no effective way to understand tax
planning issues and their effects on the ratios (such as businesses that
purposely have near zero profits to minimize the double taxation of some
corporate structures by taking salaries and bonuses). Once can basically hurl
all kinds of statistical suspicions at the reports, but they remain the longest
running report of printing business performance with a consistently applied
methodology.
