Taking the plunge into the printing business
June 22, 2009 8:50 am
By Aurelio A. Pena
DAVAO CITY, June 22 — One can be so green with envy for people who decide to go into the business of printing and publishing because no matter what happens to the economy, you still need printing to keep communicating with the world around you.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised at all about a group of Manila-based publishers and printing equipment distributors jumping at the opportunity of boosting the growth of the Davao-based DCT Printshop with new capital and changing its name to Imageworld Digital Printing after upgrading it with new printing technology.
No need to wonder too why people with ink in their blood at Zion Publishing would finally take the plunge and bulldoze their way into the exciting world of printing and publishing. Deep inside, the new owners knew the great potential of the business and wouldn’t mind investing their retirement funds into something they’re very good at — printing and publishing.
Davao printers like R.O.Tesoro, Midtown Printing, ARJ Printing, Cortes Printing, etc. have been in the business for many decades and had been growing steadily, replacing old printing equipment with newer printing machines, computerizing and digitalizing their entire operations. Just watching how all these printing companies grew all these years will convince you they’re in the right business.
What makes printing so attractive these days are the kinds of printing jobs they get from companies, organizations, government offices — and most especially schools.
From my own experience working for Tesoro in the early 1960’s, I’m still convinced that school yearbooks are still the biggest earners of the printing business, not only in Davao but also in other big cities like Cagayan, Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, etc, where I conducted lecture-workshops in yearbook planning, layout, graphics design, typography, etc for a Davao printing firm.
Just a single printing contract for one school could net a printer an average of one million to two million pesos. Some smaller contracts could go for 500,000 to 700,000 pesos each. If you’re able to sign up say, ten schools for their yearbook printing, you’d be sitting pretty with perhaps ten to fifteen million pesos receivables from yearbook contracts alone.
I can safely guess that school yearbook contracts made Davao printing companies like Tesoro’s, Midtown, DCT, ARJ, Cortes, etc. grew by leaps and bounds over the years. Of course, there are other big contracts coming from government (for various forms), from export firms (for packaging labels, etc), from election campaigns (for propaganda materials), from school newspapers and magazines, etc. — but the cash flow from these is much smaller than the big cash flow from school yearbooks.
Even banks love to give loans to any printing company. The cash flow is good and they can use the machinery and equipment as good sellable collaterals to back up those loans. So, as a printer, you’re always assured of a credit line with any bank.
I also found out during those out-of-town lectures that only Davao, it seems, out of all the other cities in Visayas and Mindanao, have printers specializing in the design, production and printing of school yearbooks. Although Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo have their own printers, they’re not as good as Davao printers in producing high quality school yearbooks.
No wonder, the Manila owners of Image World didn’t have any second thoughts of striking out a deal with DCT Printshop to form a stronger company and take advantage of tapping this huge market for school yearbooks. (PNA) DCT/AAP/lvp
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