The road to Print Summit 2018 - The Noel D'Cunha Sunday Column
When it comes to educating the print industry, PS 18, known to the industry as Print Summit, is not short on topics.
Developing business is often an incremental exercise. Yet, there are disruptors who bring on bold changes.
On 17 January 2018 Dr Indu Shahani, Paul Bradley, Thomas Glaser, Tony Massey and Amit Shah will discuss forward-looking sustainable business strategy, and what needs to happen to make that a reality.
This Sunday Column previews PS 2018
13 Jan 2018 | 7298 Views | By Noel D'Cunha
The good news for the Indian print industry, at the very beginning of the year, and if I must say, after a tumultuous 2017, is that the next edition of the BMPA’s flagship annual conference Print Summit is set to continue its dozen-years old tradition on Wednesday, 17 January 2018.
The less good news this week is that the cost of petrol has gone up again. And it’s not for the first time has this happened. But this time, unlike the protests we saw from ministers now in government in 2012-13 is missing. But let me leave it at that.
To start with, a bit of Print Summit history. The highlight of Print Summit 2009 was the ‘Paa-and-Son’ panel session moderated by Pranav Parikh and Faheem Agboatwala. It was the first Print Summit, after PrintWeek India broke into the Indian print industry. The panel had the father-son combination of Ramesh and Siddharth Kejriwal of Parksons Packaging; Manoj and Jinesh Mehta of Utility Printpack; Arun and Bimal Mehta of Vakil & Sons.
That was epic.
Since then it has only gained in status. Harsh Mariwala, Ajay Piramal, Kishore Biyani, Yoshiharu Komori, Ashish Hemrajani, Arnab Goswami, Lt Gen Ata Hasnain, BS Nagesh, Vir Sanghvi, Pranav Parikh, Prof. Boman Moradian, Prof V K Murti, Prof. Parimal Merchant, Prof Samish Dalal, (Lt) Prof Rooshikumar Pandya, Radhakrishna Pillai, Prof Dr Rajendrakumar Anayath, and P Narendra are popular names who have addressed the gathering.
The last edition in 2017 saw experts discuss five principles –transformational leadership, investment strategies, pricing strategies, team building, and turning adversities into opportunities, that help drive your business forward. Here’s the link to the Sunday Column, which took a look at the five principles.
The theme of the Print Summit remains the same – Passion, Creativity and Change, but this time, Print Summit is just PS. “With Change being a sub-theme, we not only rechristened Print Summit to PS, we also have a new venue – Nehru Centre, a more centrally located and iconic too,” says Fred Poonawala, project in-charge for the Print Summit. “This emphasis on change transcends - from theme to venue to registration process (just online) to entertainment and there’s more to come. However what’s consistent is my team’s passion, the support from industry leaders and of course motivation reposed and renewed by delegates year on year for 12 consecutive editions (PS ever since 2005).”
Rallying the troops
The making of the Print Summit, over the years, has been meticulous planning. It begins almost nine months in advance. “Every little detail is fine-tuned,” says Faheem Agboatwala, a key member of the PS committee and chairman of BMPA’s Share-to-Benefit forum. He added, “This year we have a brand new venue - Nehru Centre in Worli, which in my opinion is going to be brilliant.”
The BMPA is steadfast in its goal to construct an agenda that consolidates the progress made over past editions of the Print Summits. “We always strive to make the keynote address more conspicuous and build content that resonates and heralds the changes that are shaping our industry,” says BMPA’s president Mehul Desai.
The keynote will be delivered by Dr Indu Shahani, founder of Indian School of Management and Entrepreneurship. Other speakers include Paul Bradley, chief executive of UK-based ESP Colour – an internationally renowned POS specialist firm; Thomas Glaser is the Head of Technology for UV Sheet-fed inks and is based at Siegwerk; Tony Massey who leads InnerWorkings INC as its vice president international, and Amit Shah, managing director at Spectrum Scan.
Ramji Raghavan, founder chairman of Agastya International Foundation; Hirofumi Hoshino, a board member at Komori Corp; and Puneet Datta of Canon India will also address the audience.
“Dr Indu Shahani doesn't need an introduction, and so it’s with our very own Amit Shah, who collects dozens of awards each year,” says Poonawala. “I believe Paul Bradley from ESP, UK is going to be a smashing success. He is going to talk to us about how to make your print business more efficient – the need of the hour.”
Innerworkings INC is a US-headquartered USD 1.2-billion USD print buying company. Tony Massey is going to talk about the much-hated topic of ‘print aggregators’. “This is going to be one hell of a cracking session,” says Desai.
There is no doubt that packaging is lucrative and has immense growth potential. So much so, the Maharashtra government, which is set to ban plastic, will exempt plastic used for packing and packaging. Similarly, plastic containers and sachets used to package products such as milk, grains, pulses and other goods will not be banned.
Iqbal Kherodawala, CEO and chief mentor of Printline Reproductions, “We have two subjects – one on UV and the other on ink migration, both extremely relevant and topical.
Kherodawala, who espoused the management lessons from Mahabharata last year, is also a key member of the PS committee.
Team BMPA
The PS 18 line-up brief:
Dr Indu Shahani: Keynote address
Dr Shahani has spent 25 years at HR College, the face of the institute where she was the principal. She quit HR to launch the Indian School of Management and Entrepreneurship (ISME). She is also the president and chairperson of Indian School of Design and Innovation (SDI); WPP School of Communication.
Changing the dynamics of education taking the moral-based approach is one of ISME’s strongest attributes.
At a Starbucks lecture session, Dr Shahani used a novel learning method that comprised of exposing students to an alternative class out of the classroom was used. “Textbooks and learning resources were replaced by a cup of coffee and a bite to eat,” says the report.
Dr Shahani carries herself as a brand, building relations with consumers wherever she goes, impulsively starting conversations with diverse consumers from all walks of life. “Dr Shahani is passionate about teaching, and she according to her, its lectures which keep her going. So get set to indulge in some conversation with her,” says Fred Poonawala.
Paul Bradley: Running your print biz efficiently
Paul Bradley, the chief executive of UK-based ESP Colour is delighted that his firm’s web-to-print has taken off. “It’s about what customers want, rather than what printers can produce,” says Bradley.
ESP Colour is POS specialist firm, which Bradley says, is built around exceptional people. “It thrives because of their passion for delivering the very best solutions for clients – every day.
It’s become a special place to work, where we all get to create, innovate and do things that ordinary printers can’t. That’s what drives us."
ESP focuses on solutions that mix technology, marketing, and print all of which take ESP into a new era of innovation and service. "We are focused on ensuring our team has the best kit and resources to maintain high performance, though that’s not all ESP are about. Far from it," says Bradley.
Bradley will bring 30 years of his print industry experience and share insights that help DSP to continuously set new standards.
Thomas Glaser: Kya? Kyu? Kaise?
The process of print although simple, is filled with numerous pitfalls that can occur, particularly when it comes to UV ink, low migration food packing applications and the upcoming H-UV / LED technologies.
Thomas Glaser is the Head of Technology for UV sheetfed inks and is based at Siegwerk's headquarters in Switzerland. “If there is one person who can genuinely clarify our doubts on inks and coatings for packaging, it’s Thomas,” says Iqbal Kherodawala.
Thomas will bring you up to speed on what's happening in Europe, new trends and more importantly, what’s going to happen in “apna Bharat lok”.
“Come to PS and you will see for real that Thomas Glaser has literally printing ink running in his veins,” says Kherodawala.
Tony Massey: Print aggregators
There was a time in the UK when the rise in print management companies’ turnover coincided with dipping profitability of the print industry. The reason: a print price that would barely cover their costs, but filled downtime of their presses.
In India, “print aggregators” is one of the much-hated topics along with “price-war”. There’s an uneasy relationship between printers and print management groups.
Hear Massey explain why printers should choose their print management customers just as carefully as they would their end-user clients.
Amit Shah: Value-addition - the way forward
Amit Shah is a compulsive innovator, someone who always challenges the trend by introducing new and versatile solutions. He is credited to have introduced a number of firsts in the print and POP industry – the first to start service bureau for CTP platemaking; first to print and form backlit jobs, and the first in India to provide international standard quality in four-colour halftone screen print.
Shah, the managing director at Spectrum Scan, who was as excited about the India-South Africa test series, in as much as his 100+ award-winning samples, says, “Today a printer needs to have a zeal for value addition, that is the only way to dazzle the customer.”
Shah will share how value-addition, which is key to his passion for innovation, has made his company stand among the top 10 in the world in screen printing.
Ramji Raghavan: How you can build a creative India
Raghavan is the founder chairman of Agastya International Foundation. Under his leadership, Agastya's innovative "TechLaBike” project was announced as one of the four winners of the Google Impact Challenge in India.
Raghavan will deliver key insights and ideas on the coveted assets of - leadership and creativity, for which each one of us has the capacity, potential (and need) to develop on a continuous-improvement basis.
Hirofumi Hoshino: Kaizen in the pressroom
It all began in the 1930s when Toyota which was just beginning to manufacture cars. One problem which became a significant challenge was inferior parts. Toyota recognised the problem, which led to the concept of Kaizen or in simple term, putting teams of workers together to study and analyze every aspect of the production process in order to make continuous improvements in quality.
Hoshino, a board member at Komori Corp, will share the Kaizan mantras, which will help support the bottom line.
Puneet Datta: Is now the right time to go digital?
Puneet Datta, director, professional printing products division, Canon India will present if “now” is the time to go digital.It’s an old debate – digital Vs litho. In the last few years, digital print technology has taken big strides, giving rise to the argument over which of the two techniques will deliver the best solution in a given scenario
.