Mega Calibre makes it look easy. Payment process in 1997; inventory management in 1998; first company to install an automated inserting machine in 2000; variable data printing (VDP) and transactional printing in 2002; first to have direct address printing system n 2006; first in India to install the leading transactional printing software GMC in 2006 and DirecType software in 2007; first to install an automated inland fabricating machine in 2007 and mail room management in 2008.

 In 1993, when Mega Calibre announced plans to invest in direct mailing business, the industry flinched.

"I perhaps shared the perception of the industry when Mega Calibre was first initiated," says Sanjeev Swarup, marketing and finance director at Mega Caliber. "But mailing services is a significant chunk of business. It is a serious business which requires expertise in effectively controlling all processes involved in document generation and delivery system and we have been doing it for 16 years."

Inland letter delivery
Mega is a multi-city operations based in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Mohali with VDP, inland letter fabrication and mailing service capabilities. It has a capacity to print over 1.2 million VDP prints per day and can process over 700 thousand pieces of mail per day through its four centre network.

In the entire flow of various delivery channels, inland letter forms a major service for Mega Calibre. This is used by banks for their bank statements. According to Swarup "Inland letter dispatching has turned cost effective with 50% savings to our customers. A normal rate for an inland letter is Rs 5, which we send at Rs 2.50."

Mega has a dedicated infrastructure for inland delivery system. The first inland fabrication unit Kern CS was bought during Ipex South Asia in 2007. It added two page mailer machines in Mumbai and Kolkata, which boosted the total production capacity to five lakh inland letters per day.

Multi-lingual capabilities
Plenty of marketers pull mountains of data from the web. For sustained flow of information from content owners to content consumers on demand in multiple languages, using the web methods would be the wise thing to do.

For information flow from content owners to content consumers in multiple languages, Mega needed a delivery system which permitted multi-channel communication.

"We bought the first transactional printing software GMC in 2007 to leverage the PrintNet Designer management services," says Sanjay Datta Gupta, director of operations at Mega. "Today, we are accredited with successful implementation of projects where the letters/mailers have been made multi-lingual with recipient's postcode," he adds.

Key to profitability
Transpromo, which has gathered momentum in the past year, is cross selling of routine documents sent to customers with enhanced and cost-effective colour digital printing. Mega utilises the GMC PrintNet software to monitor data according to customers taste, preferences and and personalisation.

Here Mega has the best of both worlds. Data and discovery. Datta explains: "Customers spend 1.2 minutes to read a bank statement and spend 0.3 minutes to read a marketing insert before dumping it in garbage. But with transpromo, the advertisement can be embedded in the statement itself."

Mega's integrated VDP hardware include Kodak Digimaster Ex 9110 and Oce 3165. "These machines offer flexibility to print transactional documents and direct mail with quality which is capable of producing 100% data in black, highlight and process colours," says Swarup.

Sound future
Drop-on-demand applications with colour and high personalisation printing is fast catching up, says Swarup. "We are looking forward to having a high speed inkjet colour printing facility for VDP.  We are also considering to up our current capacities from 600x600dpi to 1,200x1,200dpi."

Mega is eyeing exports. "There is a growing demand for one to one marketing and a trend towards outsourcing," notes Swarup.

Datta concludes: "Digital is a growing area for which the market has a giant appetite."

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MEGA CALIBRE FACTFILE
Founded in 1993
Location Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkotta and Mohali (Chandigarh)
Specialty Fulfillment services for VDP, direct-mailing and mail-room management
Equipment Kodak Digimaster 9110, Oce 3165, HP 9500 DN printers, Kern pagemailer machines, Buhrs automatic inserting machine, GMC PrintNet software, DirecType Software, multiple franking machine, RSI RSI Pro HP based inkjet addressing system
Staff 300