Ashok Nerker, the prince of pre-press passes away

I met Ashok Nerker when Unique Photo Offset Services had completed 50 years of its operations. The company was established in 1960. At the time, Unique Photo Offset Services had a variety of offerings in print for pre-press, flexo-labels and shrink sleeves, offset printing, OOH and gravure cylinders operating from units in Mumbai and the Gulf Scan factory in the UAE.

Unique was one of the big three in Mumbai in terms of pre-press prowess along with Comart and Jasra. The pre-press partner for three trade association magazines which I used to edit (and Noel D’Cunha used to design) was Unique. This was the twentieth century. 

One evening, I was summoned by Nerker to his cabin. I received a tongue-lashing because my knowledge of creating a file was “a big zero.” And then, I was unceremoniously asked to “get out.”

For one year, I avoided meeting Nerker. I was petrified. But, we worked a lot harder on creating perfect ready-to-print files. The next time I met him, he was much calmer. He said, “I don’t throw people out anymore. I look at them like this (he demonstrated) just to frighten them. The point is, if I don’t do this, no one will ever learn.”

Over a cup of tea, he said, “I wish there was a patent on our pre-press knowledge.” He highlighted the work Unique had done with “a big packaging converting company” and sheetfed commercial printers. He said, “If there was a patent and we had signed royalties, everyone would be paying royalties to me.”

Nerker was right. Unique built the foundation for most of the top players in the market. Nerker said, “Today you have companies and their salesmen who sell pre-press to an industry who have no knowledge about the basics of pre-press. This is why, as a safety device or a precautionary measure, firms buy them. Today, most companies do not know the tech specs of colour, inks, processes, plate-making and profiling.”

Unique had a first-mover advantage with flexo. Its team produced a label for a FMCG company. It had a light, heavy hue. Unique matched the colours provided by the designer. The job became a case study for how to use a shade card and how to print within the tolerance. 

Nerker shared highlights of the case study with PrintWeek. He said, “Once the ink is mixed, we keep a library of the ink mix. That recipe is our property. The ink formula is procured and used for the next time for the same job, thus reducing variability. Sometimes if you use a different ink, you get a different result. It is not easy.”

This was in the early days of flexo in India. Nerker created a roadmap for the rest of the industry to follow.

The masterclass continued. Nerker said, “Even if we produce an in-house plate, there are times when you have to make one to two extra plates. Sometimes, the pre-production of the plates has not been produced properly. In some areas, the half-tones may not be reproduced to that extent, sometimes you increase the dots, you want them deeper or expose the plate. If you’re using heavier dots, you have to do a little bit of tweaking, but this is all related. It isn’t something the machine will do; pre-press
experience is what helps.”

Nerker felt that doing business in the print industry “required very close supervision.” He spoke of the need to pay collective attention to all the facets like “costing, estimation, production, and customer management.” He added, “Unlike large companies, the printing industry cannot afford to have a large number of corporate managers.”

Whenever I met Nerker, he mentioned how new opportunities had opened up for business in the Gulf market with the setup of Gulf Scan. Did he regret the decision, considering how the packaging market boomed on the Indian subcontinent? He said, “Not at all.” 

He called it a “need-based transition because of the precarious market in India. We felt the need to innovate and with added technology change we had to create a new direction and have multiple revenue streams.”
When I visited the plant two decades ago, it was huge. Approximately 1,50,000-sqft. It had a staff housing complex which resembled the UN nations with 175 staffers from different nationalities. The USP of the new venture was gravure.

Nerker's gravure journey began in 1998-99. For four years, he had researched gravure, and travelled all over the world, including the United States of America. He convinced Alfred Yonowska to start a project in India. Somehow that project didn’t materialise. But Nerker had done solid groundwork. When he started operations in the Gulf, everything was ready.

There was an empty warehouse next to the existing plot. The manager of that warehouse asked Nerker if he wanted the place, considering Unique was a good paymaster. All the Gulf Scan machines fit perfectly and on cue, the group had 100% market domination at one time.

Nerker shared with me, “We were the only independent company there. Anybody who sought gravure cylinders came to us. Even the guys who had their own engineering plants, packaging factories, and retail outlets. Anyone who couldn’t produce the quality came to us.” A lot of the converters had installed their first machines, be it a 10-colour or 12-colour. Nerker handheld them so that they could realise their colour potential.

In a way, what Unique achieved as a pre-press house in Mumbai, Nerker’s ops in the gulf achieved that and much more. To be a direct supplier to the end customer or the brand. They collaborated with most A-list brands and the largest FMCG companies in the world. These brands recognised Nerker and his team as their best supplier or preferred vendor.

There is a lot more.  

The last time we chatted, Nerker promised to create a list of best practices in colour. But the pandemic intervened, and then, it was a saga of ill health.

Nerker has been an idol and a guide to many in the industry. He said there is no such thing as a big or small print CEO in the print industry. “You have to use the same amount of energy or intellectual capacity to make a decision worth Rs 1,000-crore or Rs one-crore.”

Sincere condolences from the PrintWeek team to the family, friends and colleagues of Ashok Nerker.