Pune’s Ganesh Printers enters digital print with Canon imagePRESS C710

New Canon digital press installed in early August

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Kalyan Maid, owner of Ganesh Printers, with the new Canon imagePRESS C710
Kalyan Maid, owner of Ganesh Printers, with the new Canon imagePRESS C710

Pune-based Ganesh Printers recently began digital printing with the commissioning of a brand-new Canon imagePRESS C710 production printer. The decade-old print service provider offered offset printing services till early this month while the digital print work was outsourced. Ganesh Printers has a Swift 4-color offset press on the offset printing side.

“Over the years we saw print run lengths were shortening. Since it was becoming unviable to use the offset press, all the short-run jobs were outsourced to a third party. Earlier this year, we thought it was time for us to get a digital press to serve our customers better. Not only could we service the customer needs better, but we could also produce the work faster,” Kalyan Maid, owner of Ganesh Printers, said.

Maid said that his first experience of the imagePRESS C710 was at the printer where he was outsourcing the digital print jobs. “I saw that the press offered great quality, and I was impressed with the technology on offer.”

The imagePRESS C710 can print at speeds of 70 pages per minute with a combined resolution of 2,400 dpi x 2,400 dpi. It can handle a variety of paper stocks such as plain, heavy, coated, and specialty, and from A4 to 13 x 51-inches in sheet size. In addition to its EFI Fiery G250 kit, the digital press also comes with the option of having an IPR kit for printers who want a more economical option. Ganesh Printers, however, opted for the EFI Fiery kit and a paper deck.

Maid is optimistic that he will soon be able to print about 1,000 impressions daily. Ganesh Printers prints items such as visiting cards, invitation cards, brochures, and leaflets. In addition to offset and digital printing services, Ganesh Printers also offers flex signage printing services for which he utilizes a Konica Minolta 512 printer.

Pre-lockdown levels expected by November 

During the early phases of the lockdown, Ganesh Printers was not operational. However, since the first phase of unlocking, it has seen workload increase gradually. Maid expects business to get back to pre-lockdown levels in a couple of months.

“Many businesses have opened up in July and August, and we see an increase in demand for print, but the cash business is still low, and customers want credit. I think things should get back to pre-lockdown levels by November,” he says.

Kalyan Maid, owner of Ganesh Printers with Canon imagePRESS C710

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

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