A day in the life of Apurv Garg

When you read your early morning newspaper, besides half tones and colour reproduction you look for...
My newspaper has become an ePaper with 24x7 general news updates on my smart phone. Have subscribed to Mint in office where I get my financial updates from.

When and how do you begin your day?
If I am not travelling which is 130-140 days of a year (domestic, international for business or holidays) then the day for me starts at 9 am. Love to sleep long. Office is just a 10-15 minutes drive from home so I reach by 10:00 am. Besides, get hugs from my kids before they leave for school early in the morning.

Do you plan your day, meticulously? Or is it ad hoc? Or is there a blueprint for the day?
A basic blueprint is drawn out for the day but being in a service industry work keeps piling ad hoc all day long. If I am visiting some clients I plan to have a few meetings on the same day in the same direction of travel but I hardly have many as I have a great marketing team and my clients know I am available and they can call me for anything urgent. Usually its emails and more emails all day long

One person with whom you like to share your daily drive to office. Why?
I would love to share the daily drive to office with my dad. As we have multiple business and locations it’s hard to find time to sit and discuss except over dinner. Also the thoughts are fresh in the morning and we can be of great assist to each other if we know what’s in our minds earlier on in the day.

What’s the first thing you do on entering the office?
From the time I wake up to the time I am in office, I forward important emails to various department heads. All these people are ready with printouts of the same to discuss with me so all of our export clients mostly in Europe and Latin America are answered especially before they arrive in office. Further our Chinese suppliers also get answers to their enquiries and have all day to act on it.

How frequently do you interact with print production supervisors? What do you discuss, commonly?
I hardly interact with print production supervisors unless there are some major issues with print quality. I get a production report everyday on the email from all units. We have a central co-ordination team headed by old and reliable people and those are the ones I usually interact with and it’s basically on schedule.

With the fierce competition, high cost of entry and above all, the increasing threat from other media, do you find that traditional ink-on-paper is facing a serious threat to its survival?
There are just a handful of Indian print companies which employ 700+ employees or have a 100cr+ business at least in commercial or book printing trade. Compare this to companies in China we are not even worth a small subsidiary to them. So first we should become Global scale to even feel threatened by other media. Fierce competition is in all trades so that does not mean you walk out of a business. What is really threatening is the efficiency levels of our workman compared to even the Chinese which are highly trained and efficient. Minimum wages are three times in China than here but the efficiency of the worker is 10 times more. Exponential increase in power costs is also a big threat. We have to move continuously to more value added printing

Which press does the best printing in India? And why?
We have a battery of Heidelberg presses and are very happy with the productivity and service availability from the company or with local engineers. We are very happy with all of our eight-colour perfector presses.

How do you rate your press as compared to leading printers the world-over?
A lot of printers in Europe have moved to large format presses. We are very happy with our perfector presses as with same labor we can print four-colours.

If you won Rs 10 crore through Playwin which printing equipment would you invest in? Why?
None really, I think I will bank it. Interest costs in India are too high and so it’s important to be a debt free company as soon as possible. The interest cost you pay is after all your profit. So I would run for profits than buying more machines.

Today, we hear of innumerable printing presses closing down or being on the verge of closing down. Why is this happening? And, what does this portend for the future of the industry?
The reason is largely inefficient and high costs. Jobs are taken by printers with little or no calculation of over head costs. Value addition is very low. Cost of printing was 90-100 per colour about 10 years back and 135-150 about 20 years back. I am very surprised when people print today at 70-80 per colour. So surely they are digging their own grave. Small blood loss patched by loans every year from banks, over the number of years, has led to hemorrhage and death of companies… So mend your ways or die.

The best breakthrough in print technology in the past hundred years?
Pre-press is what I call the heart of the printing industry. The digitisation of pre-press from manual stripping process earlier is the biggest miracle and boon for this industry.

Most printers, repro houses and graphics art professionals, complain about the manner in which profit margins are being squeezed. Are you encountering these problems? If yes, then why and how?
We have moved a large part of our business over the number of years into own products be it posters, calendars, books where we print as well as sell at our own margins. We are very selective about the print clients and jobs we print as a service provider. All costing are approved by me personally and we ensure the payment from customer is quick in-case we are providing service so the money can be rotated 4-5 times a year than with a client on longer credit where it can’t be rotated more than 2-3 times at most.

Your favorite adda? Also which is your cell phone? Pen? Car? Wrist watch?
Karims or Moti Mahal, Blackberry Z10, Chopard Mille Miglia, Audi, Reynolds Bold Blue

For a working lunch if you met Johanes Gutenberg (the father of modern printing), what would you talk to him about?
I would ask him for ways to make this industry more automated so it can run on “auto” mode than so many processes involved.

How do you motivate your sales and marketing team? Any new promotion strategy?
We are a very stable employer and my team knows my doors are always open for them whenever they need me at whatever given point in time. I have given them absolute liberty to work at their own will, I try and give them best back office support and am always in the background and have no set targets for them to achieve. They know exactly what I expect from them and they have always delivered it for me.

The most frequently used mantra in your organisation. Your corporate philosophy.
Be creative and innovative and do more value added work. We spend heavily on what would be research and development.

The craziest deadline, you've come across?
Oh. We keep getting them off and on, but I can proudly say that all our clients’ last minute jobs with eleventh hour flights have been made to fly..

Your favourite excuse to your family when you’re late?
My family is very co-operative specially with my heavy travels.. They keep me motivated than throwing tantrums.

Has the domination of the printing industry reached a plateau with the arrival of new competitors?
I don’t think there is any plateau in this trade till the time you or your sales team has stopped to make efforts. I am a believer that with right efforts, results will come sooner or later. And anyways how big are companies in this trade to think negative. Yes costing should not be compromised for growth.

Please comment of the technology and machines (press / pre-press / post-press / others) that you have invested in, in the past few years?
Oh many. Just in the last one years a five-colour, a eight-colour Heidelberg, another CTP in pre-press, upgraded the post-press with high speed stitching line prima and upgraded with high speed folding machines from Stahl and MBO. UV and Glitter machine from Grafitec.

In India, the two most important barriers are technology and cost. What advice do you have for the printer?
Invest in expensive technology if you have work and train your people well to produce with full efficiency on them to keep costs in check.

How do you stay in touch with technological developments? In this sense, please comment on your official view on CTP technology and digital printing.
We as a company work with very limited suppliers and they keep us well updated on affordable and successful technology in Indian environment. We also visit Drupa or other such exhibitions if we are looking to invest. I think in years to come CTP will move to higher faster speeds. I don’t know much about digital as am not thinking that way.

One person with whom you would like to have a face to face.
Alonso – Ferrari F1 driver. I am amazed by his driving skills and with split second thinking at those high speeds in adverse heat and driving conditions… I am sure it I can draw some skill and motivation after meeting him.