Expert Talks...
V Siva Raja, HT Media Limited
Team All About Newspapers invited V Siva Raja as ‘Guest at AAN’ and he spent an hour with us to share his personal views on
various issues concerning the newspaper industry today.
Small Vs Large Newspapers…
Today various big national dailies have landed even in the remotest corners of the country, would that put the smaller regional dailies out of business?
Siva Raja believes that the national and the regional press have different roles cut out for themselves. While the larger newspapers serve the reader with the national and international news with some local content, the regional newspapers offer support to the local and regional businesses and have a high local content. Moreover, the newspapers in India are so affordable that the reader enjoys reading both the products. Readers have a strong emotional connect with their regional language newspapers. No wonder the vernacular press is thriving in India.
On New Vs Pre-Owned Printing Equipment…
" The Indian market believes in diversity and every day the product line changes and new products have to be created.
A sensible mix of automation and human inputs is a great idea for the market."
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A lot of used equipment to an extent of 70 to 80 percent is used in this country. What are your comments on this trend?
Any business works on economics and objectivity. It is not about having a personal luxury car or a very expensive villa. It is more about the ROIs and bottom lines. If you have a business model where a new machine is required and affordable you could have it. The printing rates per thousand have changed only marginally in India whereas the price index has increased multifold. The average printer therefore has no option but to use pre-owned equipment to break-even on their costs.
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ROI on new and old machines is obviously vastly different. So, it is more about economics and wisdom, when you choose a new or a pre-owned machine.
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Using used equipment, of course, requires a very high level of competence and innovative thinking on the part of the entrepreneur and his team. It is not everybody’s cup of tea. The basic printing principles and machine designs have not changed over many years; however, what keeps ever changing is the automation and electronics. If new technologies could be integrated with the old machines, it brings down the cost of acquisition while providing the same level of quality as a new machine. Developed countries have been resorting to re-engineering and refurbishments for many years now. Almost all the capital intensive industries resort to these techniques. Aviation, shipping, construction, power, oil exploration are a few examples. It all depends on the competence and skill sets available in an organisation which drives an organisation to achieve more from less capital deployment. The easiest thing would be to buy a new machine. Running an old machine well is many times more difficult to accomplish.
It’s just a matter of thinking – even a new machine can be termed as ‘used press’ after three to four years. If you maintain the machine well, you are sustaining its life. If it delivers the quality you and your clients are seeking, it is good enough. However, the ROI on new and old machines is obviously vastly different. So, it is more about economics and wisdom, when you choose a new or a pre-owned machine.
Criteria For Machine Selection…
You would have set up the largest number of printing projects in this country, having worked in organisations like The Times of India, The Indian Express, Bhaskar Group, TPH and now Hindustan Times Group spanning over more than 35 years. What are your criteria while selecting machines for the different projects?
Any newspaper project starts with a serious debate on the viability of the market and the growth plans for the future of the organisation. The main drivers happen to be the expected revenues, the readership trends of the region, the logistics models for the region and of course the money the promoter would like to invest in the market. Any project is conceptualised based on these inputs. A similar exercise should be carried out in case of setting up a commercial printing setup.
The technical criteria would depend on the quality requirements of the market, and the sales projections besides many other tangibles and intangibles. If the market requires a high-end consistent product with lots of colour pages and high volumes, the obvious choice is a double width or a fully automated machine. However, if the setup is in a remote location with low colour and volume requirement, a simple, easy to operate machine would be a natural choice. Sometimes, organisations shift their older machines to remote locations and upgrade technologies at their larger centres to cater to the higher quality and volume requirements of the developed market. It would be ideal to have a two-machine setup, to provide better copy throughput. However, having more machines would increase operating costs while delivering inconsistent products due to the variability of each machine.
Great technologies come at high costs and enable standardisation. However, low end technologies are easy to manage and provide excellent reliability if small print orders, low revenues and low key skillsets are the order of the day. Appropriate technologies for appropriate markets should be the mantra for success. Wrong choices can seriously damage the economics and take organisations to the brink of failure.
On Mailroom Systems and Post Press Automation…
With the increasing manpower costs, page levels and print orders, is post-press automation the way to go?
While this may sound the obvious choice, still a lot of progress has not been made in this area. India is traditionally a labour intensive market. People the most versatile and flexible machines, they can fit into the most unlikely places and deliver unbelievable combination of outputs at impossibly low wages.
Machines and mailrooms can deliver standard products on specific configurations as planned and designed. They cannot change beyond the set specs. They are not infinitely flexible as human beings. However, they can deliver the planned products as per design at high throughputs and keep occupying their footprints as long as they are there and working.
If the machines have to deliver high throughput, a standardised quality, mailrooms and automation is a must. However, if the printing machines deliver variety of products and an optimum crew can manage the output, at optimum price and quality, why should a mailroom replace people.
The Indian market believes in diversity and every day the product line changes and new products have to be created. A sensible mix of automation and human inputs is a great idea for the Indian market. As long as the customer needs are served on time at desired quality levels, it does not matter as to who is doing the job at the back end.
The Future of The Newspaper…
You have written quite a few articles and often, spoken on the subject. Do you think the recent changes in the governance and the overall improvement in the world economy would change the industry’s scenario and bring positivity and improve bottom lines?
Newspaper industry on the whole and the printing industry in particular are low on investment, high on return industries. Any such industry by design would experience great highs and lows. We also have huge opportunities in innovation and change. The best part of this aspect is that we can change at a low cost and in a short time. The secret of success is to be flexible and lean and adapt to new needs and demands of the customers and the economy.
We use an array of technologies, and are influenced by almost the entire gamut of industry and opinions of the people. We could call ourselves a service industry which uses technology to deliver. We therefore get our technology at almost zero cost as the basic research happens in other related and unrelated industries. We only create our recipes and enjoy the technologies available.
This industry is directly dependent on the advertisement revenues and with the improvement of the economy, there is bound to be a positive change in the short and medium term.
Nowadays the voting happens on electronic voting machines, banking is on the net, lotteries and applications, stock market and books, even newspapers are not seriously dependent on paper. Paper is no longer a necessity, it is only a choice. Imagine, the cost of transmitting your e-paper and the cost of the printed newspaper. The answer is obvious. We need to look at new openings and out of box solutions in order to survive and prosper.
Team All About Newspapers would like to thank V Siva Raja for sharing his valuable viewpoints which our readers will benefit a lot out of it. We intend to continue our initiative by inviting more guests regularly. Be stayed with GUEST@AAN column.
VS Raja with team AAN.
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