The theme for this edition of the Congress is Magazines: New directions. New opportunities.

The Indian Magazine Congress provides a platform where people from the industry and other allied sectors share their experiences and provide their insights on the best practices for the industry.

The two-day event will feature as many as 42 speakers who will talk about different aspects of the magazine industry and the major trends in the magazine publishing industry. Tarun Rai, president, AIM, will kick start the conference with a welcome address followed by the opening keynote by Nitin Paranjpe, CEO and managing director, HUL.

Day one’s highlight will be the Keynote - Towards the New Business Model to be jointly presented by Peter Kreisky, chairman, Kreisky Media Consultancy, USA and Maheshwer Peri, chairman, Pathfinder Publishing India (moderator). The session will unravel the secret behind sustainable business model that is inclusive of the new revenue streams and how these new avenues will affect the magazine publishing business.

A case study on development of multi-platform magazine media brand will see Fabrizio d'Angelo, managing director, Burda Holding International talk about how his magazine converted itself to become multi-platform brand and leveraged their brand strength and subsequently recorded increased revenue from multiple streams.

The second will start with the guest speaker, Manish Tewari, Information and Broadcasting minister, Government of India addressing the delegates, Aroon Poorie, editor-in-chief and chairman, The India Today Group will be the moderator for this session.

What India can learn from China is a case study which will be presented by Torsten Klein, president, International magazine division, Gruner + Jahr International, Germany. The case study will see the unravelling of the Chinese success story by international publishers who have operations in both the emerging economic superpowers (China and India). This session will try and identify areas in which the Indian magazine industry lags behind its Chinese counterpart and learn from the hits and misses of the Chinese success. Maheshwer Peri will be the moderator for this session.

The conference will be concluded with a panel discussion among top Indian and international CEOs about the new challenges and opportunities that have sprung and how tackle the challenges and capitalise on the opportunities. Stefano De Aleessandri, chairman and CEO, Mondadori International,  Torsten Klein, president, international magazine division, Gruner + Jahr International, Germany, Ashish Bagga, group CEO, India Today, Paresh Nath, chairman, Delhi Press Group and Tarun Rai, CEO, Worldwide Media will be part of the panel discussion which will be moderated by Chris Llewellyn, president, FIPP (The worldwide magazine media association)

Apart from a solid speakers line-up of who’s who of the Indian and International magazine industry, the Indian Magazine Congress will provide ample of opportunity to network with industry personnel with no less than five networking sessions scheduled across the two days. 

The attendees for the event include people from the Indian magazine fraternity including representatives from the Ministry of Information, magazine publishers, media owners, marketers and advertisers, Media planners and buyers, magazine editors, brand managers, circulation specialists, magazine distributors, researchers, media and financial consultants and industry analysts.

My view: Magazine print firm CEOs must attend this one if they are keen to network and hear the publishing gurus. 

To know more about the conference and the speakers visit http://www.imc-aim.org.in/home.aspx

Mihir Joshi, besides being a PrintWeek India scribe, is a central defender and supporter of AC Milan. In his weekly column he immortalises the power of print with the same passion with which he gets excited about the world's greatest game.