Delhi’s Digital Navigation’s installation base has grown swiftly this year

116
Delhi’s Digital Navigation’s installation base has grown swiftly this year
Mukesh Sharma of Digital Navigation

Delhi-based Digital Navigation is a fast-growing company that offers software solutions to media houses across all platforms—broadcast, print and digital. It develops a wide range of software for efficient newsroom automation.

Since the launch of the editorial automation workflow solution for print media this January, Digital Navigation has added some leading brands to its client list. Since the start of the year, it has installed the software at The Times of India, Press Trust of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Deshbandhu, India Samvad, Vijaya Karnataka, Dabang Duniya, Navhind Times, Agarwal, Healthpost, Sansani News and DB Post.

“Since the launch of solutions for print, we have acquired customers at a rapid pace. We acquired these customers from across the breadth of the country—north, south, east and west,” says Mukesh Sharma of Digital Navigation.

One of the products that the company offers is called Regler, which is an editorial workflow automation application to manage all content assets, and publishes across all media channels. Regler simplifies the process of managing editorial content and workflow. It is flexible and allows for publishing content at various editorial levels. Regler users can receive immediate notification when new assignment arrives, with its simple user interface and all features are implemented in an HTML5 responsive user interface that can be used on any device. There is no need to install any application on client machine and users can access from anywhere, anytime. Within a Regler newsroom, journalists have a transparent overview and control of how content items are utilized on diverse media platforms.

Another solution that Digital Navigation offers is Troquer, which helps handle the editorial pages after they are out of the editorial workflow system. This software receives PostScript/PDF files of the editorial pages from the editorial system and sends them to respective printing press locations depending on the product code embedded in the file name. The pages are then passed through various prepress processes before being sent off to corresponding printing plants. The software automates the entire process of page handling once configured.

Curator is another offering from the company. It is an advance multimedia CMS that allows users to file content over the Internet. The system is secure and access will only be granted based on privileges, rights and usage. Ownership of sections can be restricted to user groups allowing the group to only add or edit or delete content in pre-defined sections. Users will also be able to define the priority of displaying the content. The CMS also supports news ticker/scrolling marquee for flash news.
In addition to the above, Digital Navigation provides a solution for print publication called E-Paper, which is an online version of a newspaper in a digital version.

“Newspaper companies are increasingly opting for such software as they ease the whole process, increase productivity and reduce errors,” says Sharma.

The company was also present at the recently concluded WAN-IFRA show in Chennai where it received great response.

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

Subscribe Now

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here