Top 50 GPO Suppliers List for Second Quarter Published

Second quarter 2010 data on work flow from the U. S. Government Printing Office (GPO) to private sector printers indicates that work has picked up from April through June compared to the first quarter of this year.

The value of all GPO work awarded during second quarter was $90 million compared to $73 million awarded during the first quarter and $106 million awarded during the second quarter of the 2009.

Work done by the top 50 suppliers during the second quarter of 2010 was valued at $63 million compared to $45 million awarded during the first quarter of this year and $73 million awarded in the second quarter of last year.

Of the more than 1,507 print suppliers that obtained GPO work during second quarter of this y ear, RR Donnelly of Chicago, won $19,388,554 in work, more than any other company.

"Private sector printers that have developed GPO as a secondary market are seeing the benefits of consistently winning GPO work, pricing it to win and scheduling the work to fill their production gaps," said Deborah Snider, senior vice president of e-LYNXX Corporation and division president of Government Print Management.

"These results reverse for one quarter the trend that we have been seeing, which was a decline in GPO work to the private sector. That is evident when comparing 2Q10 numbers to 2Q09 numbers. The printing industry is still concerned about government work being done internally by GPO and by individual government agencies. While GPO awards about $425 million a year to the private sector, it could be several times that amount if fewer waivers were granted to agencies to set up their own printing services and if GPO did not duplicate the capabilities of private sector printers."

Snider said that to develop GPO successfully as a secondary market, printers need to receive and analyze every GPO bid for which they are qualified. GPO has five print quality levels, and suppliers can only do work at levels for which they have been approved by GPO. Once a bid is received, it must be analyzed carefully considering all specification and delivery requirements and comparing the current job to historical data that is helpful with pricing.

Snider said scheduling GPO work is strategically important because more times than not winning bidders have the work slotted for times when they have no commercial work. This allows them to bid with discount pricing to fill downtime to keep revenue flowing and staff and equipment busy.

Non-GPO printers average 2.5 percent profitability on 70 percent production utilization. Snider said that with GPO work profitability can be increased from 2.5 percent to about 14 percent.

For more information, visit www.e-lynxx.com.