Late Mr. Appasaheb Marathe founded Marathe Group of Industries in the year 1955. Initially started as a Trading Business, it then diversified into an Automobile Ancillary. The Group further expanded its activities and built the present ‘Marathe Udyog Bhavan’ in 1966. The building today houses the corporate office of the parent company SWIFTS LIMITED and its associate companies. The road on which the office is located is named after the founder of the Group, Late Mr. Appasaheb Marathe.
His son, Late Mr. Suresh Marathe, began the pioneering work in the field of Offset Printing Machine manufacturing by designing the first Indian Small Offset in 1972. His vision and aggression has made SWIFTS, the pioneer and leaders in the field of small offsets in India. It has an installed base of more than 5000 machines in India and overseas.
In the year 1973, Swifts delivered its first small offset ‘Swift 150’. This machine got the prestigious National Award for Import Substitution in 1979. Encouraged by the success of Swift 150, Swifts launched wider sized small offset ‘Swift 300’ in 1976. It received tremendous response from small and medium size commercial printers. Due to their inherent strengths like simple design, ease of operation, capacity to print various jobs and well supported by Swifts in terms of after sales service, spares & training, they became extremely popular in the market. They also opened up self-employment opportunity to new entrepreneurs for setting up their own Quick Print Shops. Understanding the pulse and requirement of the market, ‘TTO 99’, a Table Top version of an offset machine was launched in 1980. This model seriously challenged the monopoly of stencil duplicators in the market.
The process of globalization and economic reforms started gaining momentum in India in the year 1992. Considering this as an opportunity, Swifts tied up with A.M. Multigraphics, USA, manufacturers of renowned Multilith range of small offsets, in 1995. With this tie up, Swifts got license for manufacture of ‘Multi 1250’ in India. Swift’s factory at Nashik was expanded and modernized by installing CNC machine tools and quality control gadgets. Due to advanced manufacturing facility, meticulous planning and high standard of quality awareness, Swifts could complete this project in the year 1997. With this, for the first time, an International quality small offset was made available to the Indian customers. This product then was exported to various parts of the globe and got international acclaim. Appreciating these efforts, A.M. Multigraphics gave World Wide Marketing Rights to Swifts for ‘Multi 1250’ in 1998.
With digital revolution taking place on the market scenario, Swifts joined hands with Sunrise Company, Japan, in 1999, for distribution of ‘Seiki’ make Digital Copy Printers in India.
However this did not stop Swifts from making further advancement in the field of traditional offset manufacturing. Recently Swifts have negotiated a Manufacturing Licensing Agreement with PPS Rotaprint Ltd., UK, to produce ‘Rotaprint Thompson Crown 52’ in India.
Today, Swifts offers widest range of Printing Solutions to its customers and is the most successful and preferred supplier of small format equipment.
