Making India proud… in China and world ove

Ad, Print, Pack, Paper Exhibition (APPPEXPO) held from July 2-5, 2008 at Shanghai New International Expo Centre attracted good number of visitors from China and other countries. The participation of ColorJet India, a leading manufacturer of wide format printers became the star attraction. S&G editor S K Khurana had a tête-à-tête with Rackesh Langer of ColorJet India at their stand. Excerpts.

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ColorJet India, the frontrunners in Indian wide format manufacturing segment displayed three machines, viz. ColorJet Zeus, ColorJet Iris and ColorJet P16 at APPPEXPO. They had participated last year also in the same exhibition, which motivated them to participate with more zeal this time. Explaining company’s view on participation Rackesh added, “The main purpose of our participation is not to find market in China but to locate potential dealers in other developing nations, and also to get international focus. We also want to locate more suppliers for various components from around the world, specifically pumps, filters and software. New suppliers of these particular segments are more meaningful to us.”

Talking a bit on last year’s participation Rackesh said, “It was just to test the waters.” “Our stall location was not so good last year, so we got little response. But this time our stall is situated very well in the international hall, standing alongside world-class exhibitors. The organizers used our name as one of the participants to promote their show. And this year’s participation has boosted our confidence very much. Our product quality as well as visitors’ reaction were more than satisfactory,” he added.

While having discussions about the show participation, Rackesh was very much concerned about government’s vague policies at home for getting clearances to take machines overseas to participate in shows and exhibitions. In the same context, he mentioned, “In a bid to complete the procedure, we wasted 3 months, but still could not complete the cumbersome formalities. Finally, we deposited a substantial amount as a security to the concerned department. This kind of situation brings hardships for smaller companies like ours.”

Having well-equipped manufacturing facility in northern part of India, ColorJet India make around 30 units per months, and at the show they were able to generate orders from a few new aspiring dealers for 40-50 machines. Interestingly, Chinese professionals also approached them for dealership of ColorJet products. “In all our machines, we use our in-house developed printcontroller, which is our great strength. In China, only 4-5 companies are able to develop this vital component. And our continuous R&D has helped us a lot in making our products better with time. Appreciating our machine’s quality XAAR has taken ColorJet printer as one of the beta site for their coming products,” he added.

 
Coming back to India, he stated, “For the domestic companies, reliability, delivery and consistency are the prime issues, and we are fully determined to provide these by using indigenous components, as far as possible.” Responding to a question of future and scope of such machines in India itself, he replied, “The scope of such machines is very high, but the infrastructure is lacking, taxation policies are unfavorable, and there is no motivation for conducting R&D, as one doesn’t get benefit from government.

Industry is not organized, there are no guidelines and individually interpreted situation prevails strongly. In spite of all this, and expecting little help from the government, we still have hope that at least they should allow us to work without disturbance.”

To conclude, Rackesh added, “Now, we are in a position to offer Chinese pricing but substantially better technical support to the customers and being an English speaking nation, we do have an edge. So, now it’s India’s turn to sell these wide format printers in developing nations as well apart from feeding domestic needs.”