Sudo San shares the successful journey of Komori in India and talks about their vision to weave Komori into the social fabric of the Indian Printing and Packaging fraternity.
Komori India celebrated their 6th year of presence in India as an independent identity wholly owned by Komori Corporation, Japan. Komori India Private Limited (KND) was established in 2018 after taking over the operations from their agents Insight Communications. I remember talking to the then MD, H Hoshino San who emphasized on the company planning to putting in more in service aspect of Komori machines by strengthening the service team under the able leadership of Hiroshi Suzuki San. Today, after six years, we have Jun Sudo San as the president of Komori India and with a focus to not just sell and service Komori machines but with a vision to weave Komori into the social fabric of the Indian Printing and Packaging fraternity. “Komori’s mission is to create Kando activities, fulfill their corporate social responsibility, and achieve Kando ‘beyond expectations’ for their customers, employees as well as our partners,” introduces Sudo San.
“Our focus in the immediate future will be to be a part of the Indian printing ecosystem with Komori as an integral part of it rather than someone who is just to sell and service printing machines,” he adds.
To collaborate with printing associations and institutes, to help the industry to grow is an aspect which seems to be close to Sudo San’s heart. Recalling the time immediately after they arrived as a 100% subsidiary of Komori Corporation, it was exactly when the Covid pandemic struck, but then, in the last three years, Komori has an impressive growth rate of 40% year on year. More recently, considering the impetus given to the company by the just concluded drupa 2024, Komori is on a solid platform to chart its growth path for next couple of years. “Though the 40% growth that we have achieved can be termed nothing short of incredible, but I shall ascribe it to a sort of course correction by the industry which had experienced a stagnant business activity during the substantial Covid times. It was more because of a sudden rush to increase the capacities to the pre-Covid level,” gently submits Sudo San. Komori sold over 120 machines of various configurations during the 11 days at drupa 2024 and interestingly, 35 of them headed to the Indian market.
Today we see Komori bringing in machines from Japan into India but it won’t surprise us to see Komori exporting from India to the world tomorrow; Sudo San is scouting for probable exports from India. With over 80 exhibitors from India showing their wares at drupa 2024 we such possibilities quite near.
With his stint of more than 25 years at Komori, Mr Sudo accumulates a wealth of knowledge and experience while serving the company in different capacities in different geographies including North America, EMEA territories and Netherlands. He was instrumental in establishing a service branch office in Czech Republic, supporting the boosting sales in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2011, he returned to Japan and played a key role in the development of the new Digital Printing and PESP (Print Engineering Service Provider) business.
Talking of digital printing, Komori has been exploring digital printing from the last almost two decades with collaboration with Konica Minolta and Landa Corporation.”We are a predominantly offset printing machine manufacturer but as times demand, have adapted to changing trends which you see in our 100% owned digital printing machine, J-Throne displayed at drupa,” highlights Sudo San. J-throne 29, is a 29″ Sheetfed UV Inkjet Digital Printing Press with a printing speed of 6,000 sph for single-sided printing which they claim realizes the world’s highest-class ROI. By the way, Komori’s digital press portfolio already includes the Impremia IS29s, a 29-inch Sheetfed UV Inkjet Digital Printing System, and the Impremia NS40, a 40-inch Sheetfed Nanographic Printing System. The J-throne 29 delivers the world’s highest-class ROI through overwhelming speed and performance, overturning conventional beliefs regarding digital printing. Interestingly, in double-sided printing, the press enables high productivity of 3,000 sph by means of the high-precision perfecting mechanism based on Komori’s century of success in the offset press business. The imaging technology incorporates Komori’s proprietary image forming technology and the newly developed UV ink provides printing capabilities on a wide range of substrates such as coated and uncoated paper and paperboards without pre-treating, making it valuable to the commercial, packaging and specialty print markets.
“We are securing a couple of beta sites for the digital machines mostly in the northern part of the American subcontinent since that is a highly digitally active region as far as digitally printed products are concerned,” adds Sudo San. So the customers in India or elsewhere might need to wait a while longer before it arrives on their shores, at least over a year from now. As for digital taking over from offset in the near future, Sudo San is clear that ‘for-the-moment’ they will coexist with one another, one may be taking more share than the other (depending on the industries we are taking into consideration). In any case Komori is ready with both in their arsenal to unleash as and when needed.
Komori has MBO (the paper folding expert) under its banner since 2020 in addition to its own H+H paper folders but are not much seen in the Indian market. Sudo San says, “There are many products under the Komori belt, not only H+H and MBO but also Folding Machines, Pile Turners, Cutting machines, blanking Systems in addition to software for the industry including KP-Connect, CMS and Print Management systems.” All these products are under his radar and are being looked into closely by Sudo San who has taken over only a couple of months ago in India.
