Joe Webb

Chuck Nason admits he wasn’t fully prepared for the effects of global competition as it accelerated in 2001. The president and CEO of Worzalla Publishing, a Stevens Point, Wis.-based book manufacturer, watched as a significant portion of the company’s four-color children’s book work went to China. “Global competition has affected us in a major way,” Nason contends. “It caused us to suffer a five-year slide in annual sales from just over $62 million to $44.4 million a year ago. This has meant little or no wage increases for our employees and a freeze on capital equipment purchases for four years.” Nason points out what

Book publishing companies’ revenues will rise in 2006, predicts a new study released by Strategies for Management, an industry research and forecasting company led by industry consultant Dr. Joe Webb. Revenues can then be expected to hold steady for the remainder of the decade, according to the study, called “The U.S. Publishing Business, 1997-2010.” The study also shows a recent increase in the number of book publishers by nearly a third. In 2002, there were 2,713 book publishing establishments; that number jumped to 3,377 in 2003 (thanks largely to digital printing and self-publishing). Strategies for Management expects this number to remain essentially flat for

In the last year or two, the topic of offshore printing—particularly in China—has gone from being industry background noise to a headline-making concern for many U.S printers, observes Dr. Joe Webb, president of Strategies for Management. By mid 2004, the need for a comprehensive research initiative to report the facts and dispel the myths became clear, Webb says. "A Critical Look at Offshore Printing"—a 138-page report published by the noted industry researcher with the help of Vince Naselli, Deborah Papineau and Joe LiPetri—is the result. For the purposes of this study, "offshore" printing is defined as domestic print demand sent outside the U.S. and

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