“Honesty…integrity…dedication…and hard work are our four pillars of success”

–says Rajesh Gupta, MD, Archana Press For four decades, Archana Press Pvt Ltd has enjoyed the reputation of being one of the frontline names in the Indian printing industry. The international quality and meticulous attention to detail is a testimonial to their vast experience and dedication to the profession. Since its inception, almost 40 years back, Archana Press has always maintained the spirit of creativity and excellence and has promoted customer satisfaction above all else. Smita Dwivedi in conversation with Rajesh Gupta, founder & MD, Archana Press discovers more about the company, which has won 122 national and 17 Northern India awards for excellence in printing. Excerpts. A passion to learn and grow as well as unwavering appreciation and support from its patrons is what has helped Archana Press cement its foothold as one of the best in the industry. More recently, they were in news for creating an exquisitely beautiful wedding card of Hema Malini and Dharmendra’s younger daughter Ahaana with Delhi-based businessman Vaibhav Vohra. “The vintage theme of the card was conceptualized and printed by us. And water colour paintings, were especially prepared by the famous painter Sudip Roy,” told Rajesh Gupta, the brain behind Archana Press.

Rajesh feels that they have created a strong place for themselves in the market, where they don’t have to speak much, their work speaks for them. On asking about the journey so far, he shared, “I was a young boy in 20s when I started Archana Press and since then, I am learning every day. Printing in India has come of age, and those who have joined this industry in 60s and 70s know, how difficult it was to be a printer as compared to today. I am happy that today we are amongst the best printers in India.”

With each year, the firm has earned the support of its patrons by promising and delivering results that have exceeded the highest of expectations. Today, as Archana enters its 40th year, the company still considers its customers’ pride in their work as the biggest reward. And on asking more about clientele, he added, “We don’t have any fixed clientele, we serve excellence and those who want nothing less than the best, will be our customers. Today, in print industry it is really hard to have a fixed clientele as buyers always want to bargain on price. Those who want to compromise on quality will get job done in lesser price. But, if you want quality, then you have to pay accordingly. So, clients keep coming and going, our mission is to deliver the best results.”

Having wide range of services and state-of-the-art infrastructure, they take complete care of the print job right from its nascent stage and act as a one-stop solution “We ensure that the idea of our customer is well understood, developed and transformed into a print production better than their imagination/expectation. We have one single consolidated unit where we have all the facilities under one roof to execute a complete job beginning from designing to finishing. Our versatile designing team delivers best output within framed deadlines. We have a team of proficient persons for high-end scanning, colour matching and image retouching. Subsequent to which precise colour proofing is carried out. Once the colour calibrated proofs are approved, the final file is put through our CtP workflow and plates are automatically exposed through our Dainippon Screen CtP,” he further explained.

Are technology and machines, the secret of winning so many awards, to which he smiled and said, “Not exactly, according to me, printing is not a mechanical job, it involves lot of creative inputs and dedication. Yes, machines do help in getting wonderful results, but only if you know how to use it properly.”

Their press facility has printing machines which enable them to print multi-coloured jobs along with aqueous coating and spot coating which capacitates to constrict the turnaround time to the minimum. “We can print up to 5 colours in single pass along with aqueous coating. The combinations of our press machines provide us pliability to print 2 colour jobs, front and back in single pass. Our binding and finishing unit offers various types of value added services and binding techniques respectively. Our value added services include screen printing, foiling (leaf printing), spot UV, die-cutting, etc. Binding unit offers you almost all possible binding techniques, which include perfect binding with or without section sewing, centre pinning, hard case, spine riveting, etc,” he added.

“We have industry added standard equipments in our binding unit comprises of folding machines from Horizon (Japanese) and Stahl (Heidelberg, Germany), fully automatic perfect binders from Horizon (Japanese), section sewing machines from Smyth (Italy), centre stitching machines from Hohner programmable guillotines from Polar (Germany), screen printing machines, spot UV machines, foiling machine, die-cutting machine. The availability of all these equipments under one roof capacitates us to deliver any job overnight,” he added Customers….technology…and machines, he explained his views on all, another important aspect of success is TEAM – A team of committed production personnel, marketing professionals and quality inspectors bring to every project in-depth experience, superior customer service and an unmatched efficacy. On asking about his team, he proudly added, “Both my sons have joined in and we are working wonderfully together. And other professionals here are also treated as a family member. I have this principal “Pay more…work more”. I always pay well to my employees and in return they meet our expectations.”

On asking about their future plans, Amit and Sajeev Gupta explained that diversification is inevitable today. And Amit, elder one, added, “We have to upgrade ourselves in terms of technology, we still need to learn a lot and expand our business to overseas as well.”

And adding more to diversification plans, Sajeev, added, “We are expanding our luxury invitations business and are planning some more prestigious projects within this invitation cards segment.”