Commercial printing entry by newspaper producers

-from spare capacity utilization to additional top-of-the-line machinery base
Almost all newspapers have now started using their spare capacities for printing other newspapers and this is just the beginning…newspapers like Hindustan Times, Nai Duniya and Amar Ujala, are now running hi-tech commercial printing units to cater to Commercial Printing clients. Here, Sanjeev Bhatia, Business Head – Sales & Marketing, Amar Ujala Publications Ltd, Noida, discusses this new trend in conversation with Varsha Verma. Printing has a bright future for at least 15 years in India. People are expanding and adding new machines. People who think print is dying are those who are unwilling to invest and expand, shared the dynamic Sanjeev Bhatia, who joined the company two years back and has initiated the Commercial Printing Division of Amar Ujala. Interestingly, Sanjeev brings with himself 25 years of rich experience and has been instrumental in establishing Commercial Printing Divisions at Hindustan Times and Nai Duniya.

Amar Ujala with more than 40 web offset machines started using their spare capacity to print some of the prestigious clients’ newspapers like Business Standard, The Pioneer, Employment News Weekly (English, Hindi & Urdu), etc from Amar Ujala, Noida and other printing facilities of Amar Ujala on PAN India basis. Since August 2012, Amar Ujala has started a new division under the name of ‘Commercial Printing Division’ at their Noida facility, spread over an area of approx 7,500 sq m area. With an impressive turnover of Rs 20 crore in the last financial year (2013-14), the company is eyeing a target of Rs 75 crore in the next two years by adding various machineries and new clients, including exports.

The installation base…

“In fact, we have our own set of sheet fed and coldset/heatset machines, with complete bindery equipments to provide state-of-the-art printing through Single Window operation. We do not wish to depend on outsourcing,” he said, adding, “We have a capacity to print 1.5 lakh sheets per day on 6-colour Heidelberg machine and more than two lakh sheets per day on 2-colour machine and a Perfector. Our Flowline machine can handle 1.5 lakh copies of centre-pinning per day while we can deliver 10,000-15,000 copies perfect bound each day,” told Sanjeev.

Amar Ujala’s Commercial Printing Division is well equipped with Heidelberg 6-colour 28” x 40” size sheet fed machine; Thermal CtP (Computer to Plate) 30” x 40”; Stahl folding machines; Heidelberg 2-colour sheet fed machine of 25” x 36”; Heidelberg 2-colour sheet fed machine 28” x 40” (Perfector), three 3-knife automatic cutting machines; Welbound perfect binding having six clamps with cover feeder; Muller Martini six station + cover feeder; Flowline center stitched machine; etc. Other machines include laminating; shrink wrapping; nipping; three manual saddle stitchers, etc.

“We are soon adding another Heidelberg 4-colour with coater of 28” x 40”, Komori heatset 546 mm cut off machine, 578 cut off machine, 3600 dpi CtP of size 30”x 40”, folding machine and a 3-knife trimmer,” told Sanjeev. And this is not all, they are also planning to add Manugraph Hi-line to cater to printing of outsourced newspapers, besides an online spot UV facility for finishing operations.

“We also have testing equipments like ISO brightness & opacity testing, smoothness & porosity testing, GSM testing, tensile testing, etc,” added Sanjeev.

Experienced staff…

Sanjeev BhatiaAmar Ujala has a well qualified trained group of staff, who are well acquainted to handle all challenging jobs with four people from marketing side and approx. 40 people from back-end at the commercial printing unit in Noida. “We take up projects on turnkey basis, right from conceptualization of idea until execution and delivery to destinations. Timely delivery is our main USP,” told Sanjeev.

The clientele…

Some of the prestigious clients for the Commercial Division of Amar Ujala include BRL /BWM — to print their product catalogues for 70 outlets on PAN India basis; RIL with all their formats; ABRL, FG, LG, SONY, CC&C & HB – all these retail clients are being served on PAN India basis while handling all these clients from Noida. Amar Ujala also prints books of in-house publication of Amar Ujala and various other reputed publishers almost on a daily basis. All these publishers are very satisfied with the quality, OTD & commitment.

“We have been satisfactorily catering to 183 locations for one of our prestigious clients every week on PAN India basis, well within the agreed timeframe through single window operation by our expert team,” told Sanjeev. Team members at the Amar Ujala Commercial Printing Division

Other print jobs…

Apart from the above-said print jobs, they also produce a host of products like wall calendars, table calendars with duly aqueous coating and wiro binding, product catalogues, danglers, runners, gummed sheet printing, flex printing, annual reports, answer sheets, etc. As an advice to print buyers, Sanjeev shared that they should always look at two major factors – quality and on time delivery.

Future plans…

Commercial printing of Amar Ujala Publications have also pitched tenders for export jobs i.e. for Kenya, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Morocco, Vietnam, Mozambique (Southern part of Africa), Djibouti (Eastern Africa). “For this, we are planning to have one more office in Mumbai, an export division, to cater to our export clients,” added Sanjeev.

“Five years from now, we wish to see Amar Ujala touching a turnover of Rs 200 crore and become one of the biggest commercial printer in the area,” concluded Sanjeev optimistically.

Amar Ujala typesets, designs, prints and delivers Employment News, which has a circulation of four lakh copies per week. “Five years from now, we are looking at a turnover of Rs 200 crore for our Commercial Printing Division of Amar Ujala Publications Ltd”
–Sanjeev Bhatia