SK Offset charts expansion and growth plans with new SM 74 on 12/12/12

“Most of the printers here believe that new presses won’t be able to generate enough return on investment since the market is highly competitive. However, when we decided to expand our operations, we realised we can churn more revenue from the quick make ready time that the new presses offer,” said Pradeep Agarwal, director, SK Offset.

“The machine was inaugurated on 12 December 2012 (12/12/12). It was by accident that when the machine was fully installed, and when we put in a calendar job of Lord Ganapathi, we realised that the date was 12 December,” says Agarwal.

SK Offset has been in the book printing business since 1977. It was started by late Pawan Kumar Agarwal and his brother Pradeep Agarwal with a meagre investment of Rs 2000. Today, the company has new line of young directors in their early twenties. Under training from Pradeep Agarwal, Priyanshu, Shalabh and Ayush Agarwal have been assigned with the responsibility to handle sales, marketing and operations of the company.

In addition to the SM 74, the printing facility of SK Offset, houses two Palneta Super Variant, and two four-colour and one two-colour Akiyama presses. The postpress is powered with a fleet of lamination, die-cutting, folder gluing and corrugation machines. The binding department of the company is only a block away from the print-centre, and is equipped with perfect binders, wire-o-binders, saddle stitching machines, in addition to several three-knife trimmers and folding machines. SK Offset is also planning to install a UV curing and coating machine in the near future to render coatings on monocartons.

“SK Offset had once been part of the packaging printing business but due to higher demand from the commercial and book printing segment, the company decided to step out from the packaging printing field. However, with the SM 74 installed at their units the company has plans to once again step into the packaging segment,” said Priyanshu.

The company, which has been constantly knocking a 15% growth rate since the new generation has took over, and is now gearing up for the next phase of expansion under the leadership of young Turks. “NCERT book publishing tenders, monocartons printing, and shifting to a new facility are only few of our plans. Packaging segment has been beckoning us from sometime, and with a bigger team of over 150 employees we are sure that we would be able to penetrate our business. We are also planning to install the first new 28x40 size press in Meerut,” concluded Shalabh.