The 2023 edition of Print Summit, or PS23, held in the Tata Theater at Mumbai’s NCPA on 16 February, was said to be one of the biggest ever. Organized by the Bombay Master Printers’ Association (BMPA), the PS23 was attended by 1,000 delegates from the print industry comprising industry veterans, young professionals, and print technology students.
Amit Shah, president BMPAThe event was inaugurated with a lamp-lighting ceremony with BMPA president Amit Shah welcoming the delegates and acknowledging the contribution of the members, office-bearers of the association, and the PS23 organizing team.
The keynote address of PS23 was delivered by Kedar Lele of Hindustan Unilever, followed by an inspirational talk by Sudhanshu Mani, former-general manager of ICF, Chennai. Mani talked about how he undertook the Vande Bharat project and the challenges he faced while working in the government-owned organization. The underlying message of his talk was that the most important thing for an organization is to treat its human resources well. If companies and organizations take care of their employees, then they will surely succeed, he argued.
Shasha Fischer of Koenig & Bauer gave a lowdown of his company’s solutions to the print and packaging industry. He talked about the Rapida 105 and 106 sheetfed presses and the VariJET 106 press, which integrates inkjet technology into the platform of the high-performance Rapida 106 offset press. He spoke about Koenig & Bauer’s sustainable solutions.
Lamp lighting ceremony at Print Summit 2023After Fischer’s presentation, Ankul Nanavaty of Unik Printers did a Q&A session with Ranesh Bajaj of Vinsak, who spoke at Print Summit for the first time. Bajaj said India’s infrastructure had improved a lot in the last few years and would continue to improve further. This should help Indian entrepreneurs, he said. Bajaj encouraged Indian printers to expand both product-wise and geographically in order to grow. He, however, said that beyond a point, a printer cannot stretch in terms of products, and expanding geographically makes better sense.
After the Q&A session, Shreyan Daga, who is a manifestation mentor and breathwork coach, talked about mediation and how it can help a person change for good. In the post-lunch session, Pujya Gnanavatsai Swami of BAPS.org gave a motivational talk, which was highly appreciated by the audience.
ITC PSPD’s Shailendra Singh gave a presentation on how ITC’s paperboards and specialty papers division (PSPD) managed to bring in greater manufacturing efficiencies over the last two decades by smoothening internal processes. ITC PSPD has four world-class manufacturing facilities at Bhadrachalam, Bollaram, Kovai, and Tribeni.
A new series titled ‘Lead the Change Series’ was introduced at PS23. Iqbal Kherodawala, founder and CEO of Print Line Reproductions, said this new series will feature leaders who have blazed the trail, set their own rules, and become successful.
The first leader to be featured in this series was Prashant Maheshwari of Meeples India, which is a board games event company. He talked about how he helped board game enthusiasts come together through Meeplecon, India’s only board game convention. While in conversation with Ashutosh Agarwal of Poornima Printers, he said that it was extremely difficult to find a suitable print partner for board games in India. Most of the developers in India have to work with Chinese printers to get the board games manufactured. He said that this is a big area of opportunity for Indian printers.
Ramaiah Muthusubramanian, CEO of Packfora – a global packaging consulting company, talked about the trends in the packaging industry. He said sustainability and cost reduction are and will be the hottest issues for the packaging industry.
Another leader featured in the ‘Lead the Change Series’ was Jinesh Mehta, president, and CEO of UT Pack and CEO, Unitrade FZE. Mehta, who started off at his family-owned commercial print business in Mumbai, talked about how he got out of his comfort zone and ventured into the field of packaging. UT Pack now has a modern manufacturing unit in Dubai and services top brands from the fashion industry.
The final segment of PS23 saw Indraneel Chitale of Chitale Group talk about the evolution and growth of his company from being a small milk distributor to becoming one of the biggest daily product suppliers in the country.
After Chitale’s talk, the concluding session was by Arunachalam Muruganthanam, popularly known as the padmanen. of India. He talked about his journey to provide affordable sanitary solutions to wom
