LEBONE LITHO: Printing a Different Future
In an industry struggling to adapt, one company is already ahead of the curve. Lebone Litho Printers began investing in new technology and new strategy some time ago, and this, says Founder and CEO Keith Michael, has helped it to grow despite challenges. Strong partnerships and a reputation for quality delivery have helped the business to thrive, and through diversification there is more success to come.
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A fax machine and a garage in Westbury were the entire infrastructure behind Lebone Litho Printers when Keith Michael started the business. Two decades on, that operation has grown into a group of 610 people spanning two companies, Lebone Litho Printers in Johannesburg and Uniprint Global in Durban, now trusted with some of South Africa’s most sensitive and high-volume print contracts, from election ballots to national exam papers.
The scale sits at odds with the wider industry around it. Print volumes across South Africa have been under sustained pressure for years, squeezed by rising import costs, shrinking local paper production and a steady shift of communication onto digital platforms. “With the advent of Covid, we saw a downward trajectory in the paper and print industry, and so we have made conscious efforts to explore various revenue streams and diversify the business into digital platforms, data management, logistics management, call centre management, and more,” Michael tells Enterprise Africa.
The strategy has delivered year-on-year growth of around 30%, and has helped the traditional print and paper side of the business, spanning books, textbooks, workbooks and election ballot papers, continues to expand in parallel.
FROM GARAGE TO GROUP
Michael’s route into the industry was never conventional. He began as a print broker, at the mercy of the factories he outsourced work to, and grew frustrated with being let down. “I decided to start my own production plant and I drove around endlessly looking for work. I was a hustler, and I still am today,” he smiles. That early legwork exposed him to an industry running on outdated processes, and rather than accept them, he set out to rebuild the model from the ground up, completing an MBA and applying what he learned about systems flow to a sector that had rarely been examined that way.
“I understood ERP and how business flows should work, and that is how I got into what you see today,” he says. “We are very modern and everything flows as it should, right from the moment you walk into reception. Our staff training is up to date and we are constantly investing in further upskilling.”
That entrepreneurial instinct has carried Lebone Litho a long way from its garage origins. 20 years on, the company operates across litho, web and digital printing, packaging, security print and screen printing and embroidery, controlling every stage of production in-house, controlling quality, rather than brokering work out to others, the very practice that frustrated Michael when he started.
POWERING EDUCATION
Nowhere is that capability more visible than in South Africa’s education sector, where Lebone Litho has become deeply embedded in the machinery that keeps schools supplied. “In the Eastern Cape, we handle learner-teacher support materials. We now handle procurement of textbooks, distribution of textbooks and stationery, procurement of iPads, desktop computers, content management on those devices, and we handle distribution across every school in the province,” Michael impresses. It is a role that stretches from the printing press to the classroom door, and one built on a partnership running considerably longer than most.
For 13 years, a joint venture between Lebone Litho, DSV and Novus Holdings has kept South Africa’s schools supplied with core learning materials. “We print 65 million workbooks each year and we distribute across 25,614 schools, twice per year. Currently, it is the biggest printing project that we do in South Africa,” highlights Michael. Running alongside it is an equally demanding national commitment: exam season. “We have four examination centres in South Africa that are fully kitted out by Lebone Litho, DSV and Altron Document Solutions. We put in the machinery, the staff, the packaging line, and we handle data management and picking, packing, and distribution of exam papers to every single school across Gauteng, Limpopo, North West, and Free State.”
Work of this scale and sensitivity leaves little margin for error, and it sits against an industry backdrop that makes such reliability increasingly rare. South Africa’s print sector has seen employment fall from around 90,000 workers in 2016 to closer to 70,000 by 2019, according to industry research, with local paper supply shrinking and import costs climbing sharply in the years since. National curriculum revisions have also delayed textbook orders elsewhere in the market, leaving publishers reluctant to commission runs without certainty. Against that backdrop, Lebone Litho’s long-standing government and education contracts represent exactly the kind of resilience the wider sector is struggling to find.
ADAPT OR DIE
Industry analysts increasingly describe the shift underway as a move from selling hardware to delivering outcomes, with security, digitisation and workflow management now driving procurement decisions as much as page volumes ever did. Michael sees the same forces at play from inside the business. “The print industry is not a sexy business; it is a digital industry. We have invested heavily into litho digital printing and data and logistics management, and that is paying off today.”
Artificial intelligence, in his view, is simply the latest test of that adaptability. “AI is forcing an adapt or die nature, and technology in this industry continues to advance at an unprecedented rate. We are adapting well to it, and AI is making life a lot easier.”
That willingness to reinvent extends to the equipment on the factory floor as much as the strategy in the boardroom. Continued investment in inkjet and digital press technology has allowed Lebone Litho to run high-volume transactional and security print alongside short-run, fast-turnaround digital jobs, a combination increasingly seen as the only viable model for printers competing in a market where packaging, labelling and specialised applications are growing while general office print continues to shrink.
PARTNERS IN GROWTH
None of the company’s success, says Michael, would function without the relationships built around it. “Partnership is the key to success; it is as simple as that. There has been a change in dynamics in business and you have to think and behave differently. You have to see the world differently and reconfigure, and that is what I enjoy. Finding out what is new and what we can change, and what are the major opportunities.” Two names recur throughout his account of the business: “We work closely with DSV and Altron, and we have worked with both for many years. DSV is a key partner across government business and we have assisted them heavily in their growth in the government space. Altron is very good technology partner and Lebone partners strongly with them to ensure our tech is the best it can be.”
The dependency runs in both directions. “We have become very reliant on our partners over the years, but they have also become very reliant on us for technical support,” he says. It is a dynamic that has allowed a company founded on frustration with unreliable outsourcing to become, over two decades, one of the partners other businesses build their own government and logistics operations around.
For an industry so often written off as being in terminal decline, Lebone Litho’s trajectory tells a different story. Michael’s readiness to diversify into digital platforms, data and logistics management has kept the business ahead of a market contracting around it, while its core printing operation continues to underpin some of South Africa’s largest and most consequential national contracts. The blend of entrepreneurial hustle, technical investment and deep-rooted partnership looks set to keep Lebone Litho at the front of an industry still working out what comes next.