INKISH.NEWS -

I believe that a general question to ask when you meet somebody in the printing industry is "how is business?" - Though the person answering the question may not be deep down the actual numbers the moment he asked, he would probably have an idea. If you ask him how his business is now compared to last month or last week, he may even be able to give you a reasonably accurate answer.

When we ask the question, we ask not only because we care about each other, but also because we measure the answer against our own company. If you meet a colleague who does similar business as yourself, and maybe even in the same country or region - you want to know so that you can understand your position.

These questions are harmless, and they serve both a social purpose as well as an interest in the industry we work.

I believe the surveys delivered by Keypoint Intelligence, Smithers Pira, NAPCO/SGIA, WhatTheyThink, Intergraf, and all the others are read with interest - at least by some. These reports are, of course, comprehensive and try to give a more broad perspective also into technology trends, and market developments based on either surveys or analyzing fiscal results.

When using fiscal results it's however, mostly very retrospect since the numbers represent 12 months, and mostly published 3-6 months after that period, so the trend is, of course, true, and maybe more accurate than asking "how is business?" - but the data are old. The other issue, with the large reports, is how the data can be used to your specific business.

INKISH has developed a new service called TREND - and it is as simple as it gets. You download our app (iOS/Android), and when registered, you get one notification every Friday at noon asking one question. How has your business been in the past week, compared to the previous week? We, of course, understand that this isn't a scientific way to measure this, but we believe if enough printers answer this questions week after week, we will be able to get data that at least show some trends.

You can ask, why should a printer be interested in answering that question week after week? Well, compared to the mentioned reports above, the printer answering this question instantly see his performance on a timeline compared with all printers in his country. We believe this "reward" will have an instant value. We also think that people in the printing industry do want to share - especially if the data can be shared anonymously.

Our service is free to use for the people who contribute. If the user doesn't contribute three consecutive times, the user will need to re-activate his notification profile. First, so we don't annoy the user with notifications that won't be answered, and secondly because we will not use his data in the statistics after three weeks.

When we have got a more "critical" mass, the service will be made available on INKISH.NEWS where everybody can see the trends in the market. Users who contribute will be able to filter and compare data across sectors, countries, etc. This will also be made available as a paid-for-service so that the industry can learn from this.

In the future, we are planning to extend the TREND app. It could be questions like which month your fiscal year-end. It could be other questions that will help us balance the statistics better. Let's say that your performance is increasing the time over time, but you are a small company, then the total effect on the market is lower than if you are a large company. In the future, we also would like to understand growth to GNP, number of employees, and other measures - that ensure more accurate results, but also an ability to deliver valuable information - and of course, always without jeopardizing the privacy of the users.

The app will be available shortly for both Apple and Android devices - and as already mentioned for free. Initially, the app can only be used by users registered as "printers".

If you are already a registered user on TV or NEWS, you will be able to download the app and login with your INKISH credentials without re-registering.

Jan 30, 2020

Author: Morten B. Reitoft