Two erstwhile photolab technicians in Bhopal joined together to start the Nayan Digital photo printing business. Over the years, the business has grown to a digital printing business for wedding albums using an HP Indigo 7900 and three photolabs in Bhopal as well as an associated publicity business printing indoor and outdoor signage. The two partners — Nand Kishore and Deepak Sablok — first invested in an HP Indigo 3550 digital press in 2013. As they related to us, “This was the first such machine in the state of Madhya Pradesh and the 31st in the country.” Both Kishore and Sablok spent a couple of days at the Printpack 2019 show in Greater Noida.
In August last year, Nayan Digital traded in their 3550 to an HP Indigo 7900 digital press. Although the A3+ (13 x 19-inches) format size is similar for both machines, the Indigo 7900 can print at 2500 sheets an hour, which is two-and-a-half times the 1,000 sheets an hour speed of the Indigo 3550 that they gave back. Installed in August 2108, the new press is awaiting the peak load of the wedding photo album business. Sablok says, “We plan that when the photographers and designers start sending us more work from the current wedding season, we will be producing as many as 200 wedding albums daily. It’s a long chain before the work reaches us and so far we have been averaging about 60 to 70 books a day. However, taking our peak production of 200 photobooks a day into account, over the year we will produce an average of 110 photo albums daily.”
Sablok tells us that in spite of Bhopal being the capital of Madhya Pradesh, it really does not have the industrial development that can drive demand for commercial digital printing and this is why the business is limited to wedding albums right now. There is competition as well with other printers in the city and the state also acquiring similar HP Indigo digital presses. Nevertheless, the partners are optimistic about growth since they expect the wedding photo business to keep growing.
“There is no comparison to the HP Indigo reproduction quality,” says Sablok. The service and spares are also accessible and we were quite sure about upgrading to the Indigo 7900 press. On price there is competition but we are experienced photo specialists who command a certain price in the market based on our quality and service. In addition, we find that there is a brand recognition of the HP Indigo among the photographers and the customers also. They ask for HP Indigo output and based on the quality that customers show each other, the message spreads by word of mouth.”
