Tuesday, October 18, 2011

RaveIndia book printing is an evergreen job

From pre-press to a full-fledged printing house…with everything from pre-press to post press under one roof, Rave Scan has come a long way. Stringent quality measures, top-of-the-line machinery and the desire to excel in the print production – has given Rave Scan a name to reckon with. Almost 60 percent of their turnover attributes to book printing – children books, annual books, coffee table books, etc. 

For Rave India, book printing is their main strength – short-run commercial jobs come and go but book printing is something which is a 24x7 job, which they are accomplishing with elan and ease.

“The demand for coffee table books is rising as the awareness is more and self-publishing has given wings to the creativity of many first-time authors,” told Charu of Rave India. “Earlier, coffee table books were a luxury which not everybody would keep at their homes but now the scenario has changed, even ordinary households love to flaunt them.”

“The print run for such coffee table books varies anything between 1,000-2,000 copies. These are high-end jobs and we provide the complete solution for these books. Infact, few of our customers just provide us the pictures and we develop the content and design it accordingly,” told Bhavnesh Kumar, director, Rave India, as a matter of fact.

Rave Scan also specializes in producing annual school magazines for which they provide a complete solution, right from designing to post press. “We have a tie-up with a host of schools and we provide a complete solution to them,” he added.

“Almost 60 percent of our turnover comes from books, it is an year round job for us. Balance 40 percent of our turnover comes from other print jobs,” told Rakesh Bhatnagar, managing director, Rave India adding, “Our customers are mostly Indian publishers and we feel happy servicing the local clients, though we would definitely like to go for exports as well.”

Talking about the book printing market in India, Rakesh added, “It is still less as compared to foreign market, where we find people reading books everywhere – in buses, trains, beachside – in fact everywhere. That culture is still not there in India and hence there’s still a lot of scope to grow.”

The journey of Rave India has been interesting. Starting as a pre-press house in 1993, they ventured into printing in 2004. “In 2002-2003, we visited the top industry fairs like IPEX, drupa and Frankfurt Book Fair, we realized that pre-press houses have become passé abroad. And if we have to grow, we need to diversify into printing as most of the pre-press houses had by then become a part of the printing area – they were just an ancillary structure,” reminisced Rakesh.

With a workforce of over 400 individuals, Rave India is busy servicing a number of publishers, schools and corporate. “We have all facilities under one roof – pre-press, press and post press. Though we are proud to say that we have an impressive line of machines for our pre-press and press units, we still need to strengthen our post press section,” he added.

Combined together in their three units in Naraina, their press units house Heidelberg XL 105 4 colour machine, two Heidelberg SM 74 5-colour machine, one Heidelberg SM 102 4-colour machine and one Heidelberg single colour machine, besides KBA Planeta VCVD 5-colour CPC with coater, KBA Planeta P-44 with alcohol dampener and KBA Planeta P-24 2-colour machine.

While, their post press segments house one Perfecta program cutting machine, four Heidelberg Polar program cutting machine, five Stahl folding machines, one Muller Martini flowline saddle stitcher, two 6 clamp perfect binder, three saddle stitchers, two thermal and two wet lamination machines, two nipping machines, two shrink wrapping machines, one creasing and perforation machines, two bundling machines, one die-cutting machine, one Sakurai Maestro online coater with UV conveyer and three Muller Martini section sewing machines, etc.

Talking about their new unit in Gurgaon, Rakesh informed, ‘Right now, we have two printing machines in our Gurgaon office – Heidelberg CD 102 4-colour preset and Heidelberg CD 102 4+L preset and most probably, we might go for a complete packaging unit there.”

“We have been expanding for the last five years and so are not eyeing any major expansion this year. Last year, we experienced a growth of 35 percent than previous year and the first four months of the new financial year has given us a growth of 46 percent over the same period last year. We are targeting a growth of 50 percent this financial year,” echoed Rakesh and Bhavnesh. “Also, we might go for IPO after sometime and then plan for major expansion,” concluded Rakesh.

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