BMPA organizes a successful Print Summit 2020

Close to a thousand delegates in attendance

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BMPA
Lamp lighting ceremony at Print Summit 2020. Photo IPP

The Bombay Master Printers’ Association (BMPA) organized another successful edition of its annual knowledge seminar, Print Summit, on 23 January at Tata Theatre, NCPA. The Print Summit 2020 saw an impressive line-up of speakers who came from diverse backgrounds. The BMPA has been organizing Print Summit since 2005 to celebrate 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.

The event, which saw close to a thousand delegates in attendance, was supported by 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.

Print Summit 2020 commenced with a talk by ad guru Josy Paul, the chief executive officer of BBDO. He talked about how print and print advertisements can kick off huge engagements among the general public. Paul gave various examples of how print advertisement campaigns have had a major impact on public.

“Print acts as a trigger and has the power to move people. A campaign cannot start without that trigger,” Paul said.

D Shivakumar, group executive president at Aditya Birla Group, talked about how MSMEs can achieve success by working in the ecosystem of large companies. The talk was very important for the audience, which was mostly made up of owners and management of print and packaging companies, who fall in the category of MSME.

K Shankar, chief executive officer, Feedback Business Consulting Services, talked about five ‘fractals’ of a ‘lasting organization’. According to Shankar, the five ‘fractals’ are strategy, structure, process, people and technology.

Modern technology is disrupting legacy businesses across sectors, including print. Vivek Krishnani, managing director at Sony Pictures Entertainment India spoke on this very topic of staying relevant with disruptive innovation. Drawing a parallel between television and film industry and print industry, he said the two may have different business models but technological innovation is having an impact on both.

“Change is inevitable,” Krishnani said. Citing the examples of Kodak, Yahoo! and Nokia, he said that if companies do not change with time, they will become irrelevant.

Gaur Gopal Das, a former HP engineer turned Indian lifestyle coach and motivational speaker, talked about how to address professional challenges. He said that there are things which are variable and those that are constant. According to Das, focus should be on tackling variables which are in one’s control and not constants. He said that individuals should strive to compete with oneself.

Print Summit 2020 also saw an interesting panel discussion among Akshay Kanoria of TCPL Packaging, Pragnyat Lalwani of Seshasai Business Forms, Manish Sharma of Printo and Canvera, and Naresh Kumar Dasari of Macro Media Digital Imaging on how to run multi-location businesses. The session was moderated by Iqbal Kherodawala of Printline Reproductions.

Sascha Fischer, head of product management at Koenig & Bauer Sheetfed, informed the audience about his company’s plan for drupa 2020. He said that Koenig & Bauer is focusing on improving productivity by looking to reduce make-ready time and offering faster machines. He also said that Koenig & Bauer will organize a pre-drupa event in Radebeul on 21 April.

The event closed with a presentation by Vivek Bhargava, chief executive officer, DAN Performance Group, on digital as a multiplier to the print industry. He said that the new generation is not getting attracted to the print industry as a career option, which is a big challenge.

Bhargava also talked about the disruptions and said that 3D printing industry is poised to grow manifold in coming years.

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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