Bengaluru: A tale of two printers

Dinesh Printers: a printer with a difference

Rajajinagar Industrial Estate in Bengaluru is a print hub of Karnataka. This estate houses many industrial units which includes print houses. Among the many industrial estates and areas located within Bengaluru’s jurisdiction, Rajajinagar Industrial Estate accounts for the largest number of workers employed by these units. That’s why this estate is significant in terms of providing employment and producing diverse products of value and volumes.

One such unit is Dinesh Printers, a professionally-run printing house. This is the Dinesh Kundapur-owned Dinesh Printers housed in a 25,000 sq/ft is a “customers’ pride and competitors’ envy”. Anyone who pays a visit to Dinesh Printers is impressed by the cleanliness, neatly arrayed printed works, systematic storage of raw-materials, etc. The look of the shopfloor highlights its best house-keeping practise. A compact administrative office over-looking the shop-floor adds lustre to the facility.

In today’s competitive environment where technology, speed and aggressive marketing rule the roost, Dinesh Printers does its business a tad differently by abiding to a rudimentary ideology and being loyal to their roots. They do not engage themselves in different things with too many machineries and fancy kit. They have a limited inventory, and they leverage it. This pays high-dividends and keeps driving their business growth. They believe in the saying: “He who does a business not known to him, loses out totally and he who leaves the business very well also loses out.”

“Maximisation” is the core mantra of Dinesh Printers. They are equipped with basic fuss-free hardware.
 

One four-colour press, one single-colour press, a Bobst die -cutter and a Bobst Ambition folder-gluer, two programmable cutting machines and other ancillary kit. In comparison to its contemporaries in Bengaluru, Dinesh Printers are equipped with the minimum, which makes it nimble and nifty; and an ideal press for small jobs.
 

Dinesh Printers specialise in handling pharmaceutical industry’s print-needs, viz. labels, medicine cartons, etc. Their focus on commitment keeps them going all through the day and month. With a bench-strength of 75 workers consisting of 50 trained and skillful permanent workers, they are willing to go the extra mile. This is one reason, Dinesh Printers’ turnover is growing year-on-year. Around 50 percent of the annual turnover is from exports. The countries on the export radar are: East Africa and Zimbabwe.

Behind the success of Dinesh Printers is Dinesh Kundapur, the sixth son of Padmanabh and Nagaveni. Padmanabh was a document writer in the region of Kundapur. Like any child from a typical middle-class family, Kundapur joined college after schooling and majored with arts. After that, he moved to Bengaluru to join his elder brother Chandramohan Kundapur, working as a manager in Fouress India. “With academic qualification nothing can be done,” advised his brother and asked his sibling to gain hands-on experience in “a new craft”.

Taking his brother’s advice seriously, he joined BS Printers in Yeshwanthpur in 1980. After a years experience in various aspects of printing, he left BS Printers and set-up a letterpress unit on his own at Bashyam Circle, with the help and support of his brother Chandramohan Kundapur and brother-in-law Suresh Kundapur, a manager in Syndicate Bank.

This press set up in 1981 was struggling to survive and run.  It was a testing time. With a will to succeed, Dinesh Kundapur had put up with all difficulties and slowly inched to success. In 1985, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. In 1995, he acquired a four-colour press and it opened up new vistas. With a bit of fine-tuning, success was knocking on his door.

Today, Dinesh thinks out-of-the-box and does his business differently. This means, he has positioned himself as a printer with confidence and class.

The growing business coupled with confidence, has created a need to opt for expansion. Understanding the change in production ground-rules, he has acquired one acre of land at Tumkur KIADB to set up his unit-2. The work is in progress and it should be operational by the end of 2014.

For me, Dinesh Kundapur is a living proof of what hardwork and sincerity can yield. Success! And it is sweet. Once you taste this, you will not cease and you will always go after it. And when you taste success the hard-way, you will not like to lose it. Towards this goal, one must develop a positive mind; afterall, positive mind powers profitable results. It is not a big deal to know how great you are! Your greatness depends on what deeds you do!

Dinesh Kundapur may be small in size but big in business. A good example on how to go about planning and printing!
 

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Vishwakala: Moves into new facility

The commercial printer Vishwakala, a PrintWeek India Award winner in 2011 was in the news. The press block was inaugurated by me and by Sharada Nagasundar. The post-press block was inaugurated by A Balachandra of Rajhans Enterprises and his wife. Balachandra was the president of KOPA and is the chairman of TOPTET which manages the prestigious TOPTEC building project.


Vishwakala: winner of PWI Award in 2011

It was a mega event attended by family, friends and associates when Vishwakala moved into its vast facility spread over 40,000 sq/ft at Yeshwanthpur Industrial Suburb. Yeshwanthpur is one of the fast developing locations in Bengaluru.

H C Vishwanath Babu, managing partner at Vishwakala said that the move was necessary to bring “all operations under one roof; also three locations were difficult to monitor”. Babu expects production to increase by 15% as a result. For this purpose, Vishwakala has made investments in post-press kit, in addition to implementing the GMG ColorServer.

“It saves time, adds productivity in terms of colour consistency and eliminating colour variation,” said Babu overlooking the last embellishments at the unit in Yeshwantpur Industrial suburbs of the garden city.

The new building housing Vishwakala’s operations is an imposing building with architectural elegance. This building adds sheen to the whole area. The building speaks volumes about the success of Vishwakala Printers, owned and steered by the soft-spoken Babu, who is known for breaking the rules and shifting the goalpost.
 

True to his nature and style, the inauguration of the new facility on a once acre plot was held on 28 April 2013 with “an auspicious puja”. The event witnessed gaiety, simplicity and tradition. The building was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi’s grand daughter, Sumitra Gandhi Kulkarni. The new facility accommodates all the three units operated from different locations and packaged and compartmentalised. Every block or division has enough space for moving around.

A special mention must be made of administrative and pre-press block.  This block houses the administrative offices, a neatly done-up conference room, marketing and sales section, accounts and sourcing sections.  Each one is independent of the other though, they are inter-connected and inter-linked.

This has been done with meticulous finickiness.

Today, Vishwakala has some very fine hardware and other equipment to make their set-up as one of the top class printers. Every machine or equipment added was done after deep thinking and evaluating the needs.  As a result, every machine installed at Vishwakala will not remain idle. They are all in constant use.”

Vishwakala Printers are known for excellently executing coffee-table books, brochures, catalogues, table-top calendars, tags for apparel industry, paper carry bags, corporate stationeries and a lot more. These jobs are specialised ones at the hands of Vishwakala.

Conclusion: Today, printers in Bengaluru are decommissioning their older kit and opting for new ones. The trend which is noticeable in this region is to produce quality product to the fullest satisfaction of the customers. As a result: most Bengaluru printers are updating their facilities. n

Nagsundar heads Geetanjali Graphics and is the president of Karnataka Offset Printers’ Association (KOPA).