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| Nitin Garg |
Nitin Garg aged 43 years as on
2024, is the Managing Director of Faridabad head quartered NBG PRINTOGRAPHIC
MACHINERY CO. (P) LTD. manufacturing narrow web flexo label presses. Nitin is
an engineering graduate, alumnus of
Purdue University West Lafayette USA. Earlier he did his schooling from ApeeJay
School Faridabad and later passed out of
New Delhi’s Delhi Public School, R K Puram in 2000. After acquiring his
engineering degree from Purdue, he returned home to join their family business
that was headed by his mother under guidance of his father Dr. S K Garg who was
an academician, a doctorate in statistics working as a professor and principal
of a government aided college.
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| Dr. S K Garg |
Nitin’s mother, while being a homemaker,
established business under guidance from her husband Dr. Garg, who as a
professor had time to guide her because of the limited hours he had to spend in
service. Their maiden venture National Engineering Works was set up to produce
components, from 1980 to 1989 they were making parts for printing machines for
companies like Raghubeer machinery, Jai Mahabeer, Bandhu, The Printers House
etc. In 1990 they set up NBG, started to produce web offset presses and that
carried on until 2016. Dr. Garg named the company NBG after his children, son
Nitin and Bharti Garg. In 2008 Dr. S K Garg retired and joined business
full-time as managing Director. While his father was actively heading the
company looking after admin and finance, Nitin took care of marketing, product
development, quality control and sales along with his sister Bharti who also
joined the company. Nitin had joined NBG in 2003, after training within the
company for a year, he was entrusted with the responsibility of establishing
exports along with looking after quality control. He found success in markets
like CIS, Africa, South America etc. Side by side he also set up the trading
business and became agents for the world-renowned Swiss company Wifag,
manufacturing highspeed offset printing machines for newspapers.
In 2008 NBG installed their first
CNC machine to trigger development and upgrade the quality of their equipment.
This followed up with more such machines. In 2015 they installed high precision
inspection machine for upgrading quality of their mainframes from Zeus Germany.
In an endeavour to hone his management skills, Nitin studied to get an
executive MBA degree from UCLA in 2014.
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| Bharti Garg Agarwal |
His younger sister Bharti who had
joined NBG, is married and lives in Faridabad. Her husband has a business of
producing components for batteries. Until 2018 she was working with father and
later started to work with Nitin who was heading the company. Bharti started
looking after marketing and sales.
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| Nitin with Anuj Bhargav |
Their primary customer base was
newspaper companies and right from the time he joined business, Nitin had
observed that with the advent of electronic media, the decline of newspapers
was happening, so there was a need to diversify. He spent the next couple of
years researching, talking to industry friends and associates on what could be
the next project to indulge in, and the answer was packaging. Family friend
Ravinder Gupta owner of P R Packaging mentored Nitin to take up packaging as
his focus and initially NBG started trading in package converting machinery
from China, but that business catered to sheetfed process while they had
experience and expertise in roll or web converting. So, with advice coming from
friends who had knowledge of the infrastructure they had, it became clear that
label business is what suited them best. Nitin spent time studying the narrow
web flexographic label printing and converting market. Leafing through market
reports and industrial data, he came to the conclusion that there is
substantial growth in flexo label market. It is a segment that will prevail for
a long time. The product size of the equipment suited them. In 2016 they
produced their first press with double servo, electronic line shaft and auto
registration. Since they were not aware of the application part, the product
did not do too well, and for this reason they sold its parts in pieces but did
not leave hope of developing the right product. The brighter part and
directional support came to Nitin from Anuj Bhargav of Kumar labels, who not
only advised him on building the right press but also bought it later and found
it successful. Nitin is indebted to Anuj for having played a key role in
developing the machine. In the flexo press segment this became a take off point
for NBG. The very first narrow web label press by NBG was sold to Galaxy labels
NOIDA. The press was extensively rested for three months at their own factory,
even running production jobs, as they wanted to be sure of their equipment’s
performance. They initiated their exports with a press sold to a customer in
Tanzania, who has become a repeat customer and then they have sold to customers
in Portugal and UAE. Since they were trading in equipment for paper bags,
bowls, buckets for food and cups, they could expand into wide web flexo as
well, selling to the same customer base. The first customer in this wide web
flexo category was DJS printers in Manesar.
Looking back Nitin Garg says
while we were confident of our engineering capabilities, yet for building a
press, you need to have good know how including the application part and that
is where Anuj Bhargav had been a big support with his experience and knowledge,
they could achieve creating a good piece of equipment. Kumar labels has
purchased and installed two presses from NBG and the third is getting ready to
be installed soon. Nitin’s vision is to manufacture equipment that is
technically upgraded and in sync with latest technologies, a combination press
on their shop floor is ready for delivery. They are also planning a sleeve
press that is a mix of flexo and roto gravure. It is a matter of pride for NBG
that the customers who have bought their machines have been previously running
Gallus machines. In short time from scratch to now they have sold 8 narrow web
flexo machines in India besides their offset presses and wide web flexo presses
that they produce up to 1.8 meters wide and 1.6-meter repeat for the corrugated
bord industry.
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| Taruna Garg |
In 2004 Nitin married Taruna who
had done her engineering from Mumbai university followed by One-Year Management
Programme for Senior Executives from INSEAD in 2015. For almost 20 years she
worked as an IT professional in corporates. While she was doing fairly well in
her last job as Assistant Director in Fidelity International at Gurgaon, Nitin
who was growing and expanding both in manufacturing and trading, was short of
hands. At that stage family support is important for growth. She joined NBG as COO in 2024.
Nitin’s father Dr. S K Garg
unfortunately got infected during covid and passed away in 2023. His mother, at
age 67 , has somewhat withdrawn but still comes to the office for a few hours
every day but her role remains advisory.
Since Faridabad has been an
engineering hub with a big presence for support to the printing industry, for
NBG it became a convenient journey to flourish in. Nitin agrees that that most
of the successful brands of Indian flexo presses that have been developed, come
from Faridabad, the neighboring industrial suburb of New Delhi. Faridabad is a
part of NCR Delhi and a major industrial hub of the state of Haryana. Faridabad
already has an infrastructure to cater to the printing industry at large. He
says there is no doubt that companies like The Printers House (TPH), Sud &
Warren and the likes thereof have been instrumental for this city to become the printing
machinery hub. He says, “I am a big admirer of late Manmohan Kohli of TPH, who
not only scaled up businesses, contributed hugely to the growth but was the one
who put in systems in place ahead of time”.
NBG’s main assembly plant at IMT
Faridabad is on a plot admeasuring 4000 square meters and another parts
manufacturing facility of 3000 square meters making a total shop floor area of
about 70,000 square feet. Their sales office is in New Delhi’s Connaught Place.
They have a total workforce of 150 employees. In terms of infrastructure, Nitin
asserts that they are confident of competing with European products as they
have the know-how and keep abreast of the latest technologies around the world
and can adopt them in their machines. They deliver machines in four months from
confirmation of a firm order. The biggest achievement he feels is that 80% of
business comes from existing customers, which confirms consistency. NBG has
sold 60 presses in the narrow and wide web flexo press category. As regards
service, NBG already has a big setup that also caters to their trading activity
in international printing and converting equipment. As for the future, they plan
to mark their presence in all segments of flexo presses; narrow-web, mid-web
and wide-web. As for digital, Nitin says he does not want to depend on anyone,
NBG will develop and own digital printing press. They are in the process of
aligning with European design specialists for printing equipment to produce the
best that is needed globally. Nitin expresses that digital will grow as it is
convenience that makes any industry grow, if you see over the years the
industry has transformed from letterpress to offset to gravure to flexo and now
digital has already impacted the commercial print market.
He concludes, “Whatever is
convenient will be the future” He further adds “In 5 years, we don’t know where
we will reach but one thing is certain we will try and produce the best; we
have always invested back in the company in infrastructure, in know-how and
people. It is a legacy of my father, and we will continue to do that.”
Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited,
New Delhi January 2025
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