Bhavish Graphics offers digital printing solutions to top publishers

With ongoing developments in digital printing and more and more publishers going in for digitally printed copies for their short run requirements, Bhavish Graphics has set up a branch in Faridabad to cater to the publishers in the Delhi belt. D Ramalingam in a tête-à-tête with its enterprising head N Sreekumar finds out more. Excerpts. Aunit of S Viswanathan (Printers & Publishers) Pvt Ltd, Bhavish Graphics progresses ‘to the name’ (bhavish=futuristic), keeping abreast with technology, and using it to the benefit of the customer. In a short span of 10 years, from 2003 to 2013, the company has grown from nil to rupee eighteen crore per annum turnover…an achievement in itself!

The heritage…

N SreekumarNotably, S Viswanathan was the founder-secretary of AIFMP, starting it in his own premises in Chetpet, Chennai, where the company is still functioning, and one may say it is a heritage building for the printing industry. His good work was continued by his son V Subramanian (popularly known as Mani) who contributed his services as president of MPLA and AIFMP and was the initiator of the National Awards for Excellence in Printing (NAEP).

Later, joining the company, his son-in-law N Sreekumar set-up a digital printing unit by name Bhavish Graphics in 2003 in line with GenNext thinking. With equipments at his disposal like offset conventional prepress, Man Roland Favorit, Man Roland Parva, Komori Excel 32, Mitsubishi 1F 4-colour, postpress PE cutting machines, punching machines, horizon folder, Autoprint tricreaser, laminators and Welbound Green, he added on a Xerox high-end machine. He went for volume work initially making use of both technologies. Bigwings like Aircel, Hutch, Reliance, Airtel became his prestigious customers. The product mix along with their regular offset jobs, included the bills, envelopes, circulars of these mobile giants. With the communication industry moving on to online services, the chunk of stationery by mobile phone companies took a blow. Sreekumar, a regular visitor to major book and printing fairs, realised the opportunity of book printing by digital.

Books on demand…

Soon, Sreekumar realised that printing books digitally has its advantages: firstly, the ideal quantity demanded by domestic/overseas publishers, which becomes uneconomical by offset; secondly, no wastage – just print exact quantity, no over as in offset; and thirdly, inventory in computer, repeats or database readily available (no physical storing space).

With shrinking print-runs, offset becoming uneconomical, on-demand-books gaining momentum, worldwide publishers going for one book to three digit quantities, Sreekumar opted for Xerox specialities, and tied up with global publishers.

Since it is not always feasible to work across states, there came the idea of starting a branch in Faridabad to be nearer to the cluster of publisher customers in Delhi area. Today, their client list boast of leading domestic/overseas publishers like Pearson, Taylor & Francis, Hachette, HarperCollins, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, KW Publishers and Harvard to name a few.

Presently, the company’s facilities include 2 Xerox DP 180, 1 Xerox DT 180 HLC, 3 Xerox DT 6180, 1 Xerox Nuvera 288, 1 Ricoh HD1 / HD2, 2 Konica Minolta 6000 and host of other pre and post press equipments need for soft and hard case binding.

The success mantra…

Sreekumar is supported by his wife Nanditha, presently a director of the company, who is responsible for setting up and listing each and every shop floor operating steps meticulously, preparing bilingual instructions sheets, and introducing MIS for follow up and control. A quality assurance manual, an exhaustive one, was prepared by her as well. In 2006, the company became ISO certified. Soon it was followed up with in-plant training, and quality consciousness was induced to the workforce.

So, what’s the success mantra for this budding enterprise? Well, Sreekumar has been driving the company to be always profitable. A shrewd costing man, he takes pain to see that perfect costing in classical manner is done to keep the machines running at all times. “Idle machine costs you a lot,” he says nonchalantly. “Of course, the margin has to be kept. A company should know its cost,” he continues. He educates the customers on technological developments, explains them the benefits and suggests the jobs which would be beneficial and cost-effective.