The story of the birth of the Serbian company Radoznali vrabac (Curious Sparrow), which delights young people and all other generations with books personalized in a special way, is really a story of birth. Namely, after her nephew was born, the future founder of the company, a psychologist by profession, prepared a special gift for him. A story in which he was the main character. Soon, a business idea was born from that short story for children.
The right product and the right team
The basis of their book product is attractively illustrated stories that customers can customize for the recipient. They can choose a name, hairstyle, eye color, add glasses and finish with a photo and a dedication. The entire ordering process is extremely simple and takes place entirely online. Customers receive the book in the mail within a few days. At the same time, the efficiency of the production process is of key importance.
At the end of 2019, they started their business takeoff with five employees and a Canon imagePRESS C650 press. The powerful production device met all their expectations in terms of quality and speed of printing, which was crucial for the satisfaction of the customers, who were increasing every day. A key success factor was the partnership with Canon gold partner company AIGO, with whom they are extremely satisfied and have excellent cooperation.
Improvement of production and expansion in the region
The popularity of books from the “Curious Sparrow” series prompted the owners to make certain changes. They expanded the team, which today has twenty members, and started opening representative offices in new markets. Today they are present in eight countries with books in the local language. In addition to Serbia, there are also Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
In 2022, business expansion led to the need to upgrade printing capacities. After two short tests, they were convinced of the excellent performance of Canon’s high-performance imagePRESS V1000 production printer. With it, they could more than triple the maximum daily capacity.
The rapid growth continued, and in 2023 it was even one hundred percent. In January 2022, they included in their offer a series of personalized books for adults “Ljubav u koricama” (Love in the Cover), which is why they had to add another device to their printing fleet in cooperation with the authorized Canon gold partner AIGO. This time they decided on the Canon imagePRESS V1350. Thanks to a special unit (Sensing Unit), the machine provides consistent colors using an in-line spectrophotometric sensor that enables automatic color adjustment.
Thanks to the dedicated PRISMA software that ensures speed and stability of work, the new machine significantly improved printing efficiency and reduced the number of errors and waste by 5%, which at the current volume of production, 18,000 books were printed in December 2023 alone, means very high numbers.
“Personalized books are different from standard book production. We have to adjust the production processes in an above-standard way. That’s why the Canon imagePRESS V1350 is so important to us. His role in maintaining consistent print quality, color accuracy and image clarity are key to maintaining our reputation with customers,” said Mr. Srdjan Mirkajlovic, general manager.
