Scaling New Heights

As one of India's leading print solution companies, Repro India boasts a
150,000 sq ft print facility at Mumbai, and has more than 400 employees. The
company prints books for various segments ranging from paperbacks to soft-cover
books children's books activity books, promotional books, and even course
material for leading IT companies. Repro has invested heavily in technology to
cater to its client base of more than 250.

Repro also has a large number of IT companies as clients for whom it
undertakes printing course material and internal training material. As
Microsoft's Authorized Replicators (MSAR) in India, it undertakes the entire
print-based fulfillment for Microsoft's operating systems and application
products. It also prints books and courseware for Microsoft's Official
Curriculum (MOC) apart from managing subscription programs for Microsoft.

Repro boasts of a client-list of renowned IT companies such as IBM, Sun
Microsystems, HP, Compaq, Aptech, NIIT, etc for whom it prints and standardizes
books and other courseware. It has printed large volumes of books for Microsoft,
IBM Learning Services, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oxford University Press, Orient
Longman, Egmont Imagination, etc.

Although Repro has been using digital technology for more than a decade now,
it was only about two years back that the company scaled up its technology to
also offer print-on-demand (POD).

The Web defines POD as referring to digital printing technology that allows
one or two copies of a book to be printed at a time, dispensing with the expense
of warehousing books. It also allows a publisher or author to have books printed
only as they are ordered, which means that at the end of the year, a publisher
doesn't face costly returns from bookstores.

Reasons for Scaling

For Repro, the decision to scale up their technology from digital printing
technology to offering POD services was driven more by business requirement.
Agrees Rajiv Vohra, board director, Repro India, "I wouldn't call it a change
since we have been using digital printing for a long time but only recently have
we scaled to print-on-demand services. So, it was a scaling up of the existing
technology, and also since we were getting customers for POD, we decided to
convert it as a strategic business unit in Repro." He adds that scaling up is a
positive thing since it implies progress.

Also, the company was facing no particular issue that prompted it to scale up
the existing technology. Instead, as consumers demand, new technologies are
invented which in turn determine our adoption rate for the upcoming
technologies.

For its scaling up activity to POD, Repro, apart from Xerox, considered other
vendors like HP, OCE, IBM, Konica, Minolta, etc but what Repro decided in favor
of Xerox was the customer's requirement. "The customer would have developed his
solution on a particular set of technology and stabilized on it. That is
customer driven choice. That does not mean it cannot be done in another way,"
says Vohra.

Repro thereafter installed Xerox's products like DocuTech 6180 Production
Publisher and the PowerPlus Series that helped the company process more jobs in
lesser time, with high-speed printing, job flexibility, and diverse finishing
options. "Apart from this, we also installed Xerox 4110 Copier/Printer which
meant digital scanning and printing at best-in-class speeds for one-sided and
two-sided documents. Also, the optional EFI controller extends your Xerox 4110
print functionality to leverage an EFI print workflow and ability to do more
complex applications, including variable information printing.

Growing Need for POD

The growing need for information dissemination has made POD more relevant in
the present times. POD publishing combined with the Internet as a marketing tool
has democratized the publishing industry-it has become much easier to
self-publish and self-market today than ever before.

According to Vohra, the need for POD has stemmed from the fact that people
need more information at a much shorter notice since information is changing at
a rapid pace. This acquired information needs to be disseminated through new
medium like the Internet, etc. "Therefore, if our client wants one of his
earlier published works again, he prefers being sent the PDF attachment to him
over email instead of sending across a hard copy of the published work since the
email reaches him faster. Also, he can get a printout easily from his laser jet
printer," he says.

Benefits

Today's commercial printing environment is more complex and competitive than
ever before. Our customers are increasingly demanding faster turnarounds,
shorter run lengths, and personalized color documents. "The key to leveraging
these trends is to develop new ways to work that translate into finding
innovative ways to increase productivity and RoI," Vohra says. For Repro, POD
has resulted in an increased production capacity coupled with faster speed of
production.

One of the most important advantages that digital printing offers is variable
printing, which means that each printed document can have
personalized/customized data. "Since our core application is providing technical
education material and courseware, by using POD services, the content can also
be personalized even up to printing the name and batch number, company name as
well on the content," he adds.

Another advantage of digital printing is the ability to offer a quick
response time due to its minimal press setup and it's built-in multicolor
registration system. This eliminates many of the upfront and time-consuming
processes that can cause analog printing methods to have a slower turn-around
time. Besides, even the inventory requirements for end product is low along with
simpler production steps.

Personalized printing combines static or graphic information with dynamic
database driven information, which can deliver a unique message to each
customer. Customized model or 'personalized printing' opens up endless
opportunities for one-to-one marketing, customer relationship management (CRM),
direct mailer, sequential numbering, security identity solutions, ticketing, and
billing-in fact any application that calls for different individual printed
pieces. The key is that printed content is controlled by data from a database or
even by direct input from a website. While a host of factors come into play in a
one-to-one exercise, the most critical, perhaps, is the use of innovative
technology.

Future Plans

According to Vohra, Repro India would be undertaking more scaling up
operations of the technology in the same segment of POD service. "Since POD
itself is a concept, it can be applied to more customers in various segments as
it works more as an enabler," Vohra says.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in