Steve D’Souza and wife Odelia
From going hungry as a child in India to being the owner of well-known print operation Kalamazoo, it has been a long road for Steve D’Souza Kalamazoo managing director Steve D’Souza has big plans for his company’s future, but the man who only arrived in New Zealand four years ago is equally proud of his humble beginnings.
Steve and his wife Odelia bought into the 102 year old printing company in 2004 and from May this year own Kalamazoo CFL Ltd. In the past 12 months, Steve says they have literally doubled its turnover, after acquisition of Computer Forms Ltd.
He is currently negotiating to buy three other companies to better service their existing and new clients in both the North and South Islands.
In five years time he believes Kalamazoo will be one of the larger printing companies operating in this country, and although he has no desire to be the biggest, he does plan to be the best, he says.
Steve D’Souza came from a relatively poor family in Mumbai (Bombay) and his rise in the corporate world is a “rags to riches” story that will be recognised this year by the Bombay Master Printers Association which is bestowing on him a lifetime award for achievement in the printing industry.
Born into a Catholic family in Bombay in the mid sixties, he still has vivid memories of always being hungry as a child and jogging or walking 12 to 15 kilometres to save bus money so that he could buy some bread to eat as a youngster. Sometimes he was fed by his sports coach.
Fresh out of school at 16, D’Souza started work in a Bombay diagnostic company as a filing clerk, enrolling at the same time for a degree in business administration at Bombay University, a course which takes eight years to complete. At 17 he joined the multi-national Technova Imaging Systems a leading company with a major market share for print consumables like plates chemicals and films, as a Junior Technical Sales Executive.He eventually left the job at 31, as head of its digital division.
In collaboration with Agfa, Technova still remains the largest manufacturer of plates, chemicals and films for the printing industry in S E Asia. When he left the firm for a head of sales position in the Middle East, he took with him a huge amount of printing industry experience.
The D’Souzas moved to New Zealand for lifestyle reasons in 2001, and Steve says after five years as head of sales of the 28-company conglomerate owned by the Sultan Family in Oman, he had to start again. His first fulltime job was with Kalamazoo as an account manager, then as sales manager.
Since taking over Kalamazoo CFL Ltd, the D’Souzas have installed a raft of new equipment, including a four-colour Sakurai Oliver 472 EDII , a Watkiss DigiVac 12-bin fully automatic collator and a folder through Printing Supplies and Machinery.
The company is the largest producer of manual business systems in New Zealand through its two-colour presses and GTOs and installed the Sakurai to enter the four-colour market.
There are also plans underway to move into new purpose-built factories in the North and South Islands within the next 18 months to house its expanding operation.
D’Souza believes that survival of the country’s many printers will be determined by their flexibility and service to clients in the next few years as conditions for business get tighter.
He sees his company as a service provider who also print delivering services such as print management, distribution, logistics and even help clients save on their telecommunications expenses. He’s building a strong network of services that he can offer to his 10,000 and growing client list.
“We are continually looking at what subsidiary services we can offer our customers. If someone wants to publish a magazine, for instance, we can offer them writers, editors, the printing and distribution through our network of contacts. We’ve passed on a lot of work to our own customers.”
He says the printing industry in New Zealand is competitive as it is overseas with more printing per capita than anywhere else he’s been.
“The amount of printed ‘junk mail’ that comes through our letterbox is far in excess of anything we’ve experienced in the West and certainly much more than anywhere in the East.”
The abundance of printed material aside, he believes that only a few of the smaller players will survive long term in a market with severe labour shortages and slimming margins.
While D’Souza is first and foremost a businessman, he says it is not business that drives him, but humanitarian concerns. Having come from a poor background himself, he understands the needs of the poor and is a regular contributor to Tear Fund. He believes it is important that businesses put something back into their communities – his is the poverty stricken in India where hundreds of thousands of people have not been as lucky as he has been.
“The decision to give generously to a charity like Tear Fund means we are simply fulfilling a clear moral and social obligation that has the full support of our key stakeholders,” he says.
