Ankita Communications expands product portfolio with Scodix

Value-added effects with shorter runs

1167
Communications
Lalit Gupta and his son Monshu Gupta with the Scodix Ultra at their facility in Okhla, Delhi

Ankita Communications, a commercial printer, prepress house and offset plate provider based in New Delhi has been in business for the past 15 years. While its main product has been prepress and offset plates for customers in the Delhi/NCR, its current portfolio includes commercial print products. These include both long run offset products printed outside and short run print such as brochures, wedding cards, visiting cards, booklets, catalogs, letterheads, sweet boxes, leaflets, photo albums, and diaries printed on its in-house digital presses.

For its traditional business, Ankita Communications has three CTCPs – two from Basys Print, and one Topaz. For its short and variable print it has two digital presses – a Canon C650 and a Konica Minolta 71 HC. The company invested in Scodix Ultra Pro for UV foiling almost more than a year ago. The Scodix digital enhancement press can produce high-quality glossy, embossed, metallic, glitter, security verification and braille effects for adding value to print.

Scodix adds 70% revenue in first full quarter

“Our profits increased to quite an extent after the installation of the Scodix and our revenues increased by around 70% in the first quater of 2019 itself,” says Lalit Gupta, chief executive officer of Ankita Communications. Gupta’s son, Monshu Gupta elaborates, saying, “While we surely considered other machines before investing in the Scodix Ultra, we were more inclined towards Scodix because of its cutting-edge technology and short-run capabilities to get ahead of our competitors. The machine can print from 10 cards to a thousand cards at a time and this customization has helped us to save cost and time. Owing to its various applications, it has helped us to expand our product portfolio and produce personalized products and shorter runs for our customers.”

Giving a glimpse at the machine’s capabilities, Lalit Gupta shows some of his sample products for his customers and explains that the machine has helped him to produce innovatively decorated premium quality products. The value-added special effects and applications of Scodix have helped him to expand his commercial printing business significantly.

Reflecting on the commercial printing industry in India, Monshu Gupta says, “The commercial printing industry is gaining strength in the country. With the growing prominence of marketing in India, commercial printing business is booming. This directly affects the commercial printing industry.” Ankita Communications will also participate in the upcoming drupa in Düsseldorf in June 2020.

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