As a business manager, you're constantly faced with the question of whether to branch into offering something new, versus concentrating on what you already know and do best. Diversification or consolidation? Venture or tried and true? Risk or safety?

Standing still is not an option in the graphic arts industry of the 21st century. Successful graphic arts businesses all too often find long-standing customers, even lucrative market sectors, dry up quickly. Look at typesetting in the 1980s, and colour separation firms in the 1990s.

Is the same thing happening to offset commercial printing?

Customers today expect high quality, low prices and fast, if not instant turnaround. And they're getting all three from Canadian printers today.

Our main feature article this edition presents four businesses run by professionals who recognize that their customers expect more than just ink on paper. They offer services that fit a defined market segment's specific needs. It's their unique edge in the market.

To use a buzzword, they're providing "solutions."

To succeed in today's graphic arts market, you have to offer something besides fast, high-quality printing at low prices. You have to give customers a reason to come to you and stay with you.

As successful printers and just about every business pundit will tell you, customers will pay for services, but what they really want are solutions. Successful printers, like those we've profiled, recognize that print is just a part of the whole communications package, along with the Web, telephone systems, broadcasting and everything else. Many printers — many of you reading these words — have integrated the Web into your own businesses with e-commerce, Web-enabled ordering and tracking and even Web-to-print services.

And now it's our turn at Graphic Arts magazine.

Starting in September, GraphicArtsMag.com will present late-breaking news about the graphic arts industry in Canada and the world, previews of upcoming features as well as complete stories and columns from the current print edition of Graphic Arts.

So take a look at our site, and tell us what you think about it.

Have a terrific summer!