The first webinar, moderated by Jose Thomas, business head, Quotient Communications, Mumbai, saw participation from Prof Rajendrakumar Anayath, vice-chancellor, DCRUST; Narendra Paruchuri, managing director of Pragati Offset; S Dayaker Reddy, president of IPAMA, CA Ranjit Karthikeyan, business consultant, independent director, Electronic Corporation of India; Ajay Padmanabhan, public relations and crisis communication consultant, and O Venugopal, co-ordinator, Kerala Master Printers Association (KMPA) as the panellists.

Anayath, who opened the session highlighted personal hygiene, masks and health-related segments will see an immediate upswing.

"Print entrepreneurs and professionals shall adopt new skills such as transparency in decision making, creativity, digitalisation, automation, optimisation of logistics and benchmarking of presses with proper standards," he said.

Speaking further on the ways to tackle the threat from online services and so on, Anayath urged printers to be aware of trends like functional and industrial printing, applications of 3D, active and intelligent printing, the potential in textile printing, and multi-sensory activation assisted products among others.

"Printers should be ready to adapt the disruptions of technology drivers like artificial intelligence, big data, virtual services, focus on to connected customers using Web to Print and so on. Also, the business models such as platform and circular economy will impact print, so we shall take advantage of them before they outpace us," he concluded.

Sharing his thoughts on how the economy and market dynamics will affect print businesses in these times, Narendra Paruchuri stressed the need to recognise printing as an industry first. He compared the current situation of the print industry to a flywheel that came to a stop, which will need much more energy and time to bring it back to motion.

"The business will be affected, especially commercial printing, but the packaging being an essential service, it will grow," he observed.

Paruchuri termed FY 21 as a year of survival. He emphasised the need to have cost-cutting and focus on survival rather than expand or invest until next Drupa.

Dayaker Reddy, expressed his optimism that the industry will bounce back with focus on packaging.

"Close to 40-60% of printers carry out jobs indirectly such as through agencies. Thus, printers will have to focus on getting 100% direct jobs from the customers to avoid price pressure," he said.

He announced an action plan to unite all industry associations in print and related areas and mentioned that they are already under way to approach governments with the demands collectively. "Forming a federation will help to stand for the rights of the industry and to help more progress for all stakeholders," said Reddy.

Highlighting some best practices to adhere in financial management, managing recessionary pressures and steps to be taken to overcome the setbacks, Ranjit Karthikeyan said that companies need to go back to the drawing board and chart out three possible scenarios for them post-Covid-19. "Make plans for each scenario. Prepare for the worst and expect the best. The need is to have the right management practices and prudent financial management in place. In addition, the importance of preserving cash is critical. It is essential to focus on operational efficiency, employee productivity, and re-organise entire business gamut using this opportunity," he said.

"Only take a studied decision- cash management takes precedent than everything else. Spend only for what is imperative," he added.

He further emphasised the need for printers associations to take the lead and work with raw material manufactures and stakeholders to bring down the overall cost of print production, which can boost the whole marketing spectrum.

"Two levels of communications are important, top leadership and immediate bosses shall reiterate the position of the company to employees in detail and shall gain their confidence," said Ajay Padmanabhan.

Aggregation of baseline data and the unity of all associated with the industry was stressed on to win the attention of government, industry, public to create more opportunities and to gather support.

"Impact, contribution and vulnerabilities should be presented to the government. There is a need to engage the government throughout the year to get the attention of policymakers in favour of the industry," Padmanabhan added.

Speaking specifically about the challenges faced by the Kerala print industry, Venugopal said, as a consumer state with a high dependency on NRIs and its effect on the print industry during the recession, the increased cost of production and shortage of materials, skilled labour, and also the increase in wages, among others, were identified as the key challenges in addition to a steep decline in demand.

He also highlighted that the industry needs statistics of printers, including investment, employee strength, contribution to the government in terms of tax and so on.

Venugopal also underlined the need for consortiums of small and medium printers to take volume jobs and to control costs through best procurement practices.