The Indian newspaper industry is doing an admirably good job compared to its western counterparts. Circulation is still increasing, profits are growing, advertisements are flowing in and with the literacy rates poised to grow further in the next few years along with improving infrastructure all over the interior parts of the nation, the newspaper wallahs should be bullish about the future. Having said that, increase in circulation or readership has not translated into any major sales for the web offset manufacturers. If not for some activity in the southern part of the country, the rest of India
has been too silent and devoid of any excitement for these manufacturers. Amidst these issues, IPP met Pankaj Bhasin, the managing director of manroland India who spoke about some of the challenges faced by the company and its future course in India within the global perspective.
Manpower training and utilization have been a focus for manroland India. Bhasin explains, “manroland has a tremendous goodwill in the market and it is our responsibility to uphold that. We have sent our workforce to Augsberg in Germany for training at the headquarters of manroland web systems for an extended period of time, multiple times. And only after the satisfactory completion of this training do we depute these service engineers to the presses installed at our customers’ facilities. We have taken a significant step forward in this respect.”
On the prospects of further 4×1 press sales, Bhasin says, “The 4×1 configuration has been a global success story for us. Our installations all over the world have proven this fact. Even in India, our largest customer, The Times of India group is very satisfied with its performance which makes us even more happy. We have been talking to a lot of customers all over India and the situation looks promising. With the new government in place we are optimistic that the economy should register a positive growth which should help us as well. However, we are optimistic that we would be able to sell many more
Cromomans in India because it has been a success and whoever has used it is impressed with the ease of operation, maintenance and its overall capabilities.” he adds.
Regarding competition from Indian web offset press manufacturers and other foreign competitors, Bhasin says that the priority of manroland has always been on reliability. Bhasin explains, “German engineering has always been famous and it is our priority to live up to its reputation. The downtime for any newspaper press should be minimal and if at all it happens, manroland India’s policy is to take good care of its customer’s presses. We have a pool of service technicians and engineers with us to ensure that.
When any manroland press is installed in the country, we can proudly say that 80 to 85% of the installation is done by Indian technicians. Providing this kind of service would be difficult for other
manufacturers who are operating in the country through a dealer or a distributor. I would go on to say that any customer while making a buying decision would keep reliability and service as the top two priorities.”
He adds, “Innovation in printing newspapers is another expertise we have. Advertisers now-a-days are trying to incorporate different innovative ways of printing into their ads and it is also our priority to understand and help newspaper publishers satisfy advertisers’ demands. And since most of the revenue still comes from the advertisers, it is the least that we can do.”
On manroland India’s future plans, Bhasin says the Indian market is a priority. “manroland India’s operations has recently been divided into separate sheetfed and webfed entities in accordance with the global practice followed by the two companies. This should help both the Indian companies to get a steady footing and establish its businesses better in the country. India could be turned into a hub for the Asia Pacific markets. In the upcoming future, digital printing in newspapers could also become popular where manroland will be able to provide its expertise. Nevertheless, manroland is always looking forward to keep innovating. Meeting our customers’ requirements has always been our priority and when the market improves, we would be ready to meet their expectations and demands,” Bhasin concludes
