The 2020 edition of Print Summit, the annual knowledge seminar organized by the Bombay Master Printers’ Association (BMPA), will be held in Tata Theatre in NCPA on 23 January 2020. The event is being supported ITC, Koenig & Bauer, Ample Graphics, Huber Group, Siegwerk, Srinivas Papers, Toyo Inks, Vinsak, Arushi Agencies, Autoprint, ICP Industrial, Light Punch Maker, Nippon Color, Pratham Technologies, Robus India and Technova.
The Bombay Master Printers’ Association (BMPA) has been organizing Print Summit since 2005 as a celebration on the occasion of Printers’ Day annually. Over the years, the organizers have consciously steered Print Summit away from being print-centric to a more holistic event with an eclectic choice of entertainment too.
Over the previous editions, delegates at Print Summit have come from a variety of segments, such as commercial printing, package printing, labels, POP-POS, wide format printing, on-demand printing, corrugation, creative industry, and ad agency. Personalities attending the conference are largely owners, decision-makers, technologists, shop floor personnel, marketers, designers, and admin folks and students.
Just like every year, Print Summit 2020 too will see speakers from varied backgrounds. Some of the speakers lined up for Print Summit 2020 are D Shivakumar, group executive president, Aditya Birla Group; Gaur Gopal Das, who is an international life coach; Josy Paul, chairman, BBDO India; Vivek Krishnani, managing director, Sony Pictures Entertainment India; K Shankar, chief executive officer, Feedback Consulting Services; Vivek Bhargava, chief executive officer, DAN Performance Group; Iqbal Kherodawala, chief executive officer, Printline Reproductions; Manish Sharma, co-founder, Printo/Canvera; Naresh Kumar Dasari, managing director, Macro Media Digital Imaging; Pragnyat Lalwani, director, Seshasai Business Forms; and Kaushal Sampat, senior advisor, Rubix Data Sciences.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
– Naresh Khanna
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