Supply Chain Management Practices in Printing Industry

The Indian Printing Industry is well established and presently growing at 12% per annum. According to NPES/PRIMIR (2006) report, there are more than 8000 daily newspapers published in India, besides a large number of weekly and fortnightly periodicals published in all Indian languages. The Indian Printing Industry today comprises more than 250,000 big, small and medium printers. Business models and technology strategies of SCM need to be monitored very closely to adopt changes in the print supply chain environment. This paper is to examine supply chain management practices, issues, role of information technology in printing industry. A convenient sample of 70 companies/individuals from operations department was selected with a questionnaire for conducting survey. This sample ranges across printing companies, publishers, material suppliers like paper, ink, etc., from the population of around 2500 companies in around Hyderabad. In addition to data collection through a questionnaire, interactions carried out with material suppliers and the customers or the print-buyers to find out how they operate, and seek their opinion on the practices being followed and to know their expectations in efficiently managing the operations of print supply chain. The paper is to make a small attempt to understand the advantage of adopting information technology solutions in printing industry for a seamless information flow across entire value chain, so as to operate efficiently by reducing cost.