Investing wisely!

Editor – S K KhuranaDoubtlessly, efficient machinery, skilled manpower and adequate working space to operate conveniently are three major prerequisites to ensure the long-run growth of overall output in the graphic art industry without compromising on quality and services. For those stake holders in the industry who are operating with small or medium size capital investment like most of the printers in India, it becomes rather important to think several times in this regard before taking any steps further so that very risk in business may be minimised.

In India, it is generally observed that many printers keep on investing in high-end machines to boost their business without estimating the actual potentials. Resultantly, despite having been poured huge resources on these machines, they are sometime not able to utilise full capacity in the lack of adequate workflow; even many printers keep their machines idle when they don’t have sufficient jobs to execute at manageable prices. Ultimately, to gain return on investment (ROI) becomes difficult in the due time tending problems in repaying installments as machines are mostly acquired through financing. While installing high-end machines, printers also presume that they would be able to cater overseas customers with such initiative but it is not quite feasible to achieve export business overnight in a big way. 

In this scenario, the printers who are pondering over procuring high-end machines should essentially endeavour to firstly explore the market for ensuring smooth workflow to utilise the machine at optimum level as new investment strategies remain ineffective without availability of jobs. However, it could perhaps be safer if they can initially install entry level machines to meet their emerging requirements which would not only help them in creating effective clientele but also enable to take the risk of huge capital investment at a later date more confidently.

For better performance, skilled manpower and adequate space to operate efficient machineries are also equally important. The overall output with quality standard is of higher level at those printing facilities where staff is intensively trained in different activities of business and enough space for operating various production processes is available with scientifically arranged equipments. So, it would be rather beneficial for printers if they also invest on manpower and have individuals of high caliber for taking responsibilities of marketing, HR and production.

Taking expansion initiatives in such a balanced way would not only increase their production efficiency and facilitate handling lot of jobs at a time from those valued customers who are not just much quality-conscious, but also result prompt ROI making every investment worthwhile to go ahead winningly!