KGN Xerox: The strategy is to upgrade every three years

With seven strategically located retail print shops in Hyderabad, KGN Xerox has grown to become one of the largest digital print firms. The brother duo – Asif and Wasif – at the helm of KGN Xerox envisage growth as they continue to invest in the latest kit

20 Jul 2017 | By PrintWeek India

The Akther brothers of KGN Xerox: Asif (l) and Wasif (r)

2016 was a big year for KGN Xerox. Kudos to you and your team on the new investments.

For us at KGN Xerox 2016 was a great year. We made some significant investments and implemented important strategy decisions that have set the tone for our growth in the next five years. HP Pagewide 8000 XL wide-format machine, four Konica Minolta Pro 1100s and a C1070 have joined the battery of more than 18 digital printing kits on our shopfloor.

The installation of India’s first Pagewide 8000 XL from HP at KGN has revolutionised the CAD printing segment for us as we were able to convert most of the black-and-white jobs to colour printing without much of a difference in pricing of those jobs. In the past 12 months, we have printed more than 28-lakh sq/mts of media on Pagewide. That’s huge as per our standards and it has boosted the growth of the company.

How do you plan to maintain profitability with this added capital expenditure?

KGN, as a company, has been upgrading itself with regards to technology from time to time thus enabling itself to provide top-end quality and service to the customer. Whenever we introduce a new product or a service, we standardise the rates with relevant profit margins so as to derive the ROI within 12 months. The next two years of revenue adds to the bottom line. Thus, in the third year we are ready to upgrade ourselves.

What is the growth trajectory in 2017?

We are expecting phenomenal growth in the next couple of years. The growth in 2017 is expected to be 10-15%. Telangana being a new state, there are a lot of new projects underway and plenty of major decisions are in the pipeline. We have plans to tap into new applications like exclusive wedding cards, albums, business cards etc with unique desgins and concepts.

What will help you achieve your targets in next three years?

The idea is to bring in more business and volume with good strategy in place to increase the production from the equipment that we have invested in.

What is your take on the decreasing yields across the print sector?

I believe that this is the right time to experiment and implement new ideas and strategy and close the loopholes in the company. Our policy is very simple – develop some unique and innovative concepts and products and capitalise on them.

What is your outlook on rising paper prices vis-a-vis print prices?

The paper prices will continue to rise and the print rates will further go down in the future. As printers we should start selling products instead of just selling print to secure our margins.

What are the company’s capital expenditure and expansion plans for FY18?

We are looking at an investment in a B2-size digital printing press and probably some technology from Esko and MGI Jetvarnish.

When do you expect an overall revival in the economy and what would drive growth according to you?

I really don’t see revival in the economy because demonetisation has had a severe impact. However, it has also pushed the digital payments in a big way.

Fortunately, we have been accepting payments via debit and credit cards for the past 15 years and have also migrated to mobile wallets for more than a year now. That’s the reason why demonetisation didn’t affect our business.