Digital printing: bridging technology and tradition in publishing

As the Country Manager for the HP Indigo and Inkjet presses, India & SriLanka, A Appadurai leads the digital press initiative in India & Srilanka. He is responsible for end to end GTM activities as well as the strategic planning and execution of sales growth and business excellence initiatives for HP Indigo and InkJet presses which includes both pre and post sales. Additionally, Appadurai also has full profit and loss responsibility for the business unit. One of Appadurai’s key achievements in his current role was to grow the HP Indigo business in India & Srilanka into a mature and profitable business that is also one of the fastest-growing within HP.

AABP: What is the scope of digital printing in India and what are the trends that we are seeing in the book publishing industry?

Appadurai: The scope of digital printing in book publishing can be divided into two parts: one obviously the books and other the book covers. In both of these areas, we are seeing tremendous growth opportunity for digital. We are seeing improvement in the number of inkjet machines which are getting into the market. We all have to realize that the offset cost is not the same as what it was two-three years ago. Things are changing rapidly in that space. So we see a tonne of an opportunity in India to go the digital way.

One of the largest book printers in the country is Repro, which produces the highest number of pages in the world for HP. They are the top volume producer in the world for us. They have just one HP machine but they are producing the highest volume that you can ever imagine.

Since the cost of such machines is high, not many book publishers are printing books through digital printing. But largely on the other side, on the covers, I think we are cracking it big time. We are now moving volumes from offset covers to digital covers. And that’s a business that we are going to continue forward as we see massive growth here in this market in the publishing side.

AABP: What kind of customer support are you giving to your customers so that they can get an early ROI on their machines?

Appadurai: First, we ensure there is a maximum uptime of the machine by giving the unbelievable service which is possible. Our service has grown in leaps and bounds, where sitting at some place with high-definition cameras and Google glasses, we can fix issues in the machine in a few minutes.

Secondly, we organise engagements like Publishing Evening with HP Indigo, to educate the publishers.

AABP: How is HP Indigo doing in India?

Appadurai: We are doing brilliant, with close to about 280 installations in the country. Packaging is growing in double digits and so is commercial printing. We are opening newer markets in the packaging side. On the publishing side, we are getting into the coffee table publishing markets very well. Silverpoint, which is one of the largest printing company, has installed an HP Indigo B2 press recently to print high-end coffee table books. Coffee table books are preferably printed by digital as they sell fewer copies.

AABP: How is HP working towards sustainability?

Appadurai: HP is one of the top five companies in the world on the green initiatives and green practices. So, we kind of adapt this in everything which we do as a policy. Digital is the only sustainable printing technology in the world. Every single press that is sold in the US are the inkjets, which are CO2 neutral presses. Besides, with these presses, you can print the exact number of copies you need. So, there is no wastage.

When people talk about sustainability, they only talk about paper but let’s go to the process. In offset, to run an offset machine, how much of chemicals, plates have to be used. For 1 kg of aluminium, I am damaging at least 16 times more from the environment. Then, the process wastes so much water. Besides, the power consumption of this offset process is massively high. Today when I go to digital, it’s a completely sustainable process. There is no water usage. There are absolutely no plates that are getting thrown away into the dustbin and you exactly print what you need as a product. It’s the cleanest thing that you can say. People use it for food grade packaging.

So, I think sustainability should be seen from all angles, just not pulping, repulping, but usage of chemicals, usage of water, power consumption, etc.

AABP: How is digital printing going forward in the next five years?

Appadurai: We see, again, tremendous growth. As far as India is concerned, I always tell this to my team: We’re just getting started. I think the opportunity in front of us is unlimited potential. This is the changing behaviours of consumers also. So the people who are buying books at our age are not the buyers anymore. It’s possibly the next generation which is coming. Their habits are different. So, the way they consume content is changing. In such a scenario, digital will play a huge role in printing.