At a time when tried and tested business models are crumbling under the impact of rapid change, it is not an easy task to find a way forward. Original thinking is not a common currency, much less the determination and will power to follow your own vision. Jack Malki is confronting the reality of a mature narrow web industry in Australia and New Zealand and trying to find a better means of doing business. He talks to Patrick Howard about where his discoveries are leading.
Number 19, Rosebery Avenue, turns out to be a building site. I stand outside, shielding my ears from jackhammer noise to phone Jack Malki about our appointment. It’s the right address; I’m just a couple of weeks too early, explains Malki when he emerges from the building next door. The builders and the council and all the usual obstacles to construction have pushed back the completion date to the point where his company, Jet Technologies, is operating out of temporary premises.
It’s not a big deal. The new offices are part of larger premises owned by the family. Soon Jack is showing me into a bare concrete-walled space on the first floor of No 19 where there are lines of desks with monitors and over 30 people working away. Albert Malki, Jack’s father and founder of the company, occupies the key spot near the windows. The completed move into the new offices is still weeks away.
- “We don’t sell anything that can’t make money for our customers. It’s as simple as that,” – Jack Malki, Jet Technologies.
Jack Malki is a serious, focused and ambitious entrepreneur. As we settle into our interview, he tells me his destiny as a director of the family-owned business was never in doubt.
“Other people may have different choices to make, but I was always going to work in the family business,” says the finance and marketing graduate. He joined the business in 1999 as it was beginning to transit from being an old-style trading company to more of a technology supplier. There is no doubt of his influence in shaping the contemporary business.
Given the size of the enterprise it comes as no surprise to learn that printing and finishing is only one of three divisions in Jet Technologies; the others are packaging and what they call industrial solutions. It began with Jack’s father facilitating technology imports, including Cerutti gravure presses, from Italy in the 1980s. Those pre-internet days were a golden age for importers who were able to translate and facilitate the requirements of Australian industry. It is a very different world now where so much is available online at the click of a button. The challenge, as Jack Malki sees it, is to adapt the business to address the changed conditions.
Operating in a global economy
The shape of the new economy can clearly be seen in the dynamics of Jet Technologies’ flexible die service. Narrow web printing has always been a particular area of expertise for the company. It has a comprehensive selection of products for label converters, including screen meshes from Stork, laminating films and UV printing inks from leading European manufacturers. It is also the agent for water-washable Asahi flexo plates from Japan.
Jet Technologies’ flexible dies come from Kocher + Beck, the German multi-national. Customers are able to able to get quotes and upload artwork for all types of flexible dies through the Jet-live portal. This web-based system has been operating over the past year and is indicative of the IT focus of the company. According to Malki, it has proven to be a remarkable success.
“Rotary tool products are all custom-made and for every new job you pretty much need a customised die. The number of quotes we and our customers have to do is significant. It’s a complicated process, taking, say, ten minutes per quote with hundreds of quotes per week. We couldn’t just keep on employing more and more people [to do that]. We had to find a way to automate.
“Every month for the last year or so it’s grown significantly. It’s a big growth area for us and we’re looking to expand it [Jet-live] in the next three or four months to cover a lot more of our products,” he explains.
The Jet-live system is smart enough to pick up obvious inconsistencies in measurement and specifications. When the completed artwork is approved, the files are sent through to the UK where work on manufacturing starts in the middle of the night. DHL picks up the finished die by lunchtime and it is flown out the same day. So, for instance, if the order is placed on Friday, the die is delivered by Monday morning.
“It really is incredible. There are something like 30 steps to that manufacturing process plus quality control and they are able to do hundreds of dies every week, all despatched within hours. If it’s a public holiday or they’re too busy, which is rare, it’s shipped from Germany or America. For their part DHL also does remarkably well,” says Malki.
Only if it makes money
There is a gratifying sense of pragmatism about Malki and Jet Technologies. The product portfolio consists of leading, if somewhat eclectic, brands across the company’s specialised areas of expertise. There is a notable absence of what might be termed ‘trophy brands’, big names that while impressive for reputation are either products that are already well-served in the local market, or that do not meet the Malki criteria.
“As a business owner I always think about my clients. We don’t sell anything that can’t make money for our customers. It’s as simple as that. We’re in their shoes,” he says.
Despite Jet Technologies’ deep and long-term engagement with narrow web production, you will not find a conventional flexo web press in the portfolio. To Malki’s way of thinking, there are more than enough press suppliers in Australia for the conventional narrow web market. Similarly, the company has steered away from representing finishing and converting equipment for labels and flexible packaging. What it does do is deliver a host of valuable consumables such as the Asahi plates and letterpress photopolymer plates, tapes, UV inks and screens.
One of the company’s more notable successes came in the offset sector with its installation of numerous KBA Genius 52 UV presses. These waterless UV offset presses represent a significant engagement with the offset sector, almost an anomaly in the overall portfolio. However, the customers are reportedly extremely happy with their operation. Malki has expectations of more orders to come.
Screen partners
Perhaps Jet Technologies’ most high-profile relationship is with Screen where it has a long-term, five-year partnership, especially in packaging CTP. At this year’s PacPrint show in Melbourne, it placed two PlateRite FX870II CTP engines with label printers; one to Dragon Printing in NSW and the other to Signature Labels in Adelaide. (This latter is a letterpress printer, a fine example, according to Malki, of how CTP can increase productivity and quality for printers who are sticking with letterpress equipment that doesn’t owe them any money.)
“It’s been a significant step for us. They [Screen] have been a meticulously perfect company. They make the product and service it. Our expertise is in knowing how to market it, who to market it to and for what applications. We’ve placed the majority of Screen CTPs for packaging since we’ve been working with them,” he claims.
A characteristic of the CTP market is the durability of the equipment and, especially in Screen’s case, of its reliability. This results in the supply of consumables such as plates driving the ongoing relationship, although Malki is quick to disclaim any suggestion that one size fits all.
“We brought in the Screen CTP unit we sold at PacPrint for our training and demo centre at the old offices. There will be a much bigger training and demo centre in the new offices, where we can bring clients to make plates for them. Then typically we go back to the press, analyse the results for such things as dot gain. It’s not quite as simple as saying here’s the machine. There’s a lot of work.”
This partnership is about to be deepened with Malki’s interest in bringing the Screen Truepress Jet L350UV to market not only in Australia and New Zealand but also to the company’s burgeoning enterprise in Jakarta.
“We had numerous options when we started looking for a digital press. At Labelexpo there were 50 plus manufacturers. They are predominantly using the same inkjet technology. The vast majority are using the Xaar heads. Then there’s Kyocera.
“We had a number of Xaar options but we didn’t take them up because we didn’t feel they were up to the quality and productivity we expect. We waited quite a long time, working closely with Dainippon Screen prior to the launch. Finally when it was released we liked what we saw. We fought hard to get it to PacPrint for a pre-launch, and we’ve had some outstanding feedback and results. I don’t want to jinx myself but I think we’ll have the first sale in November, and possibly the second too.”
The advent of the Truepress L350UV will also see Jet Technologies offering its customers inline finishing for narrow web. This is an area it has steered clear of so far, recognising that, again, there are a number of well-established suppliers for finishing equipment already active in the market.
Regional vision
There is a restless ambition in Jack Malki that is not to be satisfied with simply maintaining Jet Technologies at its current scale. The printing and packaging markets in Australia and New Zealand will provide incremental growth over the coming years, but nothing on the scale of the emerging economies. Indonesia is a case in point. According to World Bank figures, our nearest northerly neighbour has an annual GDP growth of 6.2 per cent (Australia has 3.4 per cent), with medium and large-scale manufacturing firms growing at 5.6 per cent. Combine this with a population of 247 million and it is not difficult to sense the opportunity for technology supply firms.
Malki opened the Jet Technologies office in Jakarta in May. This came about as a result of a long research project facilitated by his years of travelling in Asia dealing with suppliers. After eliminating markets such as Japan, Korea and China, it came down to Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
“Thailand is a big market but I think we’re too late. Vietnam is too early and it’s still a Communist country. Philippines? The language is perfect but I didn’t feel comfortable. Indonesia? I like Indonesian people. English is spoken quite a lot. The legal system is not perfect but it’s based on the Dutch system. In terms of distance it’s closer than anywhere else. From Perth it’s really close. We’re training technical staff up there now but in the meantime we’re flying in a lot of skills and we’re grouping that with Perth.”
Malki is under no illusions about the size of the task he has undertaken but he sees it as an investment challenge, not only in terms of penetrating a new market but also in training customers as well as his own staff. Jet Technologies technicians are flying from Australia to work with customers and potential customers, organising full-day training on everything from prepress to press operation and post press.
“Imagine a market in narrow web that has tripled in three or four years. With that sort of growth it’s impossible for the skills to keep up. Where a customer might have two presses, he now has six or seven. The guy operating the press started on the forklift. He has two weeks of training. In fact the first guy has probably only been doing it for two years himself. The guys making plates have even less experience,” explains Malki.
Jet Technologies is seeking to become not only the trusted supplier of choice but also a technology partner. Already Malki is considering the early day results a great success. There is no doubt the upside is enormous. With a burgeoning middle class demanding deodorants, shampoos, cosmetics and packaged food, with Unilever, L’Oreal, Proctor and Gamble operating huge manufacturing plants there, the demand for labels and flexible packaging is rising dramatically. The irony that many of these goods used to be manufactured in Australia is not lost on Malki.
“I’m of the view that the damage done to industry in Australia in the past three to six years is significant. The impact on our client base was substantial. Our business model over the years has been to adapt by adding product groups when we see changes coming along. We felt we could no longer do that,” he says.
“We’re a company that has grown every year. And if you want to grow at 15 per cent and your customer base is not growing, you either acquire more products and customers or you look elsewhere geographically.”
For Jet Technologies, the Indonesian office is only the beginning. Malki, pére et fils, are internationalists. Once Indonesia is firmly established, the goal is to have three or four offices throughout South East Asia. The expectation already is that Indonesia will be a larger business than the local Australian and New Zealand enterprises.
“I’d like to see more people in Australia having a crack overseas. We’re not special. There are lots of people like us. Even some of our customers in sheetfed are interested. I say to them, have a look! It’s not for everyone but we’ve driven a couple of them around, introduced them. I know there’s a few thinking about it,” he says.
It’s not hard to see Jet Technologies as a role model for Australian business. It is a market focused and adaptable enterprise, as prepared to take on the challenges posed by business conditions as much as those thrown up by technology. Jack Malki’s vision and ambition are tempered with grounded pragmatism. It is surely something of a template and a road map of the future of printing and packaging in the region.