Ask a print shop owner whether they need an MIS or an ERP and most will answer with a shrug, or with whichever term their last software salesperson happened to use. That’s not a knowledge gap. It’s because the two categories genuinely overlap, and most vendors have every incentive to blur the line rather than clarify it. Meanwhile the pressure to pick something is real: 85% of print companies surveyed by PRINTING United Alliance say AI is critical to competitiveness.