Man Roland inaugurated its direct presence as MAN Roland India by holding customer discussions around the country for the modernizing sheetfed printers of India in the first week of March. The events which combined the ceremony of publicly launching the direct India operation that will finally combine the selling and servicing of both web and sheetfed offset press took place in Delhi, Mumbai, Banglaore and Chennai. Since the MAN Roland web offset is already well established in the country the focus of the seminar-like events was the sheetfed business in which the company wants to increase its market share in the buoyant market.

It must be said first of all that there is no dearth of modernizing printers in India – those who are looking to buy new automated presses. Many were present at the events around the country and they were forthcoming and frank in sharing their views with the senior MAN Roland personnel from Germany. One of the most articulate cries was for training, with some customers even offering their own plants to facilitate skill and knowledge programs.

At the Delhi event at Le Meridien Man Roland was represented by Dr Marcus Rall, member of the executive board, Thomas Moser, Director Sales, Man Roland and Michael Nitsche, Head of Sheetfed Product Marketing at MAN Roland, the venerable India hand and friend Leopold Gabelentz, and RP Nargis, Managing Director of Man Roland India.

Marcus Rall said that Man Roland has been successful in India due to their clear focus on customer orientation. He described Man Roland machines as not only beautiful presses but profit drivers as well. Moser said that, Man Roland believes that India is a country on the move and would be the biggest economy by 2050 -- the Indian scenario was very similar to that of China. Man Roland is ready for permanent commitment in India and with that focus they established a marketing organization “Man Roland India” in the country in 2007. They also plan to increase the service and sales staff and commented that the number of new machines coming to India had increased substantially as compared to used machinery in the previous years.

Rall emphasized that the success factors for print media were smart design, resolute brand management, and target group orientation. Man Roland aims to be a press room expert with consistent market research, 24/7 service world wide, and an intensive feed back culture. The new motto for Man Roland for sheet fed presses would now be “Increase market share” and for web offset it would be to “become a global market leader”.

Michael Nitsche spoke about Man Roland’s future oriented value added printing concept.  He explained it was a two way strategy for higher profitability -- one way is to boost print production efficiency, and the other way is differentiation by adding value to the print product. He said the two models of the Roland 700 Next Generation -- Roland 700 DirectDrive and Roland 700 HiPrint, both provide efficiencies in value addition. The Roland 700 DirectDrive is the first offset press to manufacturer to introduce electronic direct drive for the plate cylinder. It was said that together with other automation features the DirectDrive technology could reduce makeready time by almost sixty per cent. This press is useful for printing with short runs. The Roland 700 HiPrint is a universal press for modern printing aimed at the high performance market segments.