Offering a wide variety of finishing options in one print run significantly increases profits and cuts production time
Skysat Technologies is a Nigerian-based company that operates a chain of quick printing shops throughout the country. Just five years ago, the first “copy shop” opened in Lagos, offering a wide variety of digital print services, including brochures, business cards, reports, mailings and presentations.
As the business grew, more shops were opened and new print services added, including photo products and even producing some magazines and books on demand.
Initially, the finishing of all the printed documents was outsourced. However, it became clear that this was causing a hit on the print job profit margins, seriously increasing production and delivery times and creating logistical problems. Experiments with several types of stand-alone finishing equipment produced some improvement, but proved time-consuming and difficult to service.
Skysat spoke to Konica Minolta and learned about the inline finishing options available on the bizhub presses, when the finishing device is connected directly to the press. Tests proved successful, and a decision was taken to install a colour press with one of the most versatile inline finishing units connected to it.
The inline finishing solution has been instrumental to the growth of the Skysat chain of quick printers. The growth of our business has allowed us to expand; we are now operating four different shops, and plan to open three new shops by the end of this year. Without the inline finishing options, we would not have been able to offer such a wide variety of digital quick print services!
Izzat Debs
Managing Director
“This solution took away all our headaches,” says Izzat Debs, Managing Director at Skysat. “It is an ‘all-in-one’ solution that saves us a lot of time and eliminates the logistical hassle. Sometimes a customer can simply wait for the job to be done. On top of that, it has allowed us to maximize our profit margins on each job, because we can charge for each finishing requirement separately even though we can produce automatically in the same print run.” Mr. Debs concludes: “Even in a country like Nigeria, where labour is cheap, we have seen that inline finishing is the quickest and most cost-effective solution compared to using offline devices.”
“The inline finishing solution has been instrumental to the growth in the Skysat chain of quick printers” continues Debs. “The growth of our business has allowed us to expand. We are now operating four different shops and plan to open three new shops by the end of this year. Without the inline finishing options, we would not have been able to offer such a wide variety of digital quick print services!”