Picture Gallery: BMPA-Ricoh Print Summit 2014: Driving the change

Picture Gallery: BMPA-Ricoh Print Summit 2014: Driving the change

The BMPA-Ricoh Print Summit 2014 was organised on 24 January at the Tata Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai. Faheem Agboatwala, a Print Summit committee member addressed a 500+ member audience

(l-r) AIFMP president, AMSG Ashokan; Komori representative and the BMPA team of Sanjay Patel, Fred Poonawala, Dev Nair and Faheem Agboatwala commenced the Summit by lighting the diya

Sanjay Patel, the BMPA president, in his opening address, complimented the Print Summit members and the attendees for the success of the show

Guest of honour: AMSG Ashokan, president of the All India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP). The president said, "Print Summit has set new standards for a conference."

The Summit's chairman, Fred Poonawala, announced the eighth edition of the Summit open and promised an insightful day

Faheem Agboatwala, director of Hi-Tech Printing Services and head of BMPA's flagship Share To Benefit was the host for the event

Radhakrishnan Pillai from the University of Mumbai, Department of Philosophy, spoke of the role of print in taking Chanakya's Arthshastra to the masses through books, and how change, like charity, begins at home; thus emphasising on the revamp of one's own ideas and thoughts.

Amomg other things, Pillai spoke of Aanveekshikee, the science of strategic thinking with its base in philosophy. As he said, "Management is merely a way of thinking. Tradition can be used to one's benefit in a modern setting." Pillai is the author of the best selling 'Corporate Chanakya'

The keynote speaker, (and undoubtedly the star) of the Summit, Ashish Hemrajani, the CEO of BookMyShow, in his address, stressed on the importance of user experience and providing solutions that’s relevant to print. He said, "Rapid changes have taken place, the eco-system has changed."

Quoting from his BookMyShow journey, Hemrajani said, "We are entering into a space, where we may be going paperless – paperless entry into theaters." But he hastened to add, "Technology will continue to evolve. An alternate to print will become available, and be adopted. If you as printers provide solutions to your customers that are relevant to print, print will be around for a long time to come."

In spite of operating in a business 'rival' to print, Hemrajani was of a belief that there are areas, even in his business, where print cannot be replaced. One instance he shared was that of the IPL ticket documents, where print is used to add security features

Prof Boman Moradian, proprietor of Telesis Consultancy Services, director at Essel Propack, and director at Garware Polyester, emphasised on fundamentals like - designing the plant in a way to reduce cycle time, timely delivery, and reducing variability

With candour he said, "What gets measured gets analysed. And what gets analysed is performed upon. If you cannot pay to reduce variability, you will pay in terms of WIP, underutilised capacity or high lead time."

Spectrum Scan's Amit Shah, with his video presentation, took the audience through the process of producing electroluminescent (EL) panels / signs / boards through traditional screen printing. A screen printing advocate, Shah, said, "Technology has evolved but the traditional screen printing process is not primitive yet. The applications of this process are wide-ranged and touch upon the requirement of every industry.”

The Print Summit members adorned the EL-printed Summit logo, which was appreciated by the audience. Shah on EL printing, "Electroluminescent printing is not magic, it is a tested and proven technology."

The BMPA-Ricoh Print Summit 2014 participants got a dose of digital gyaan when Avijit Mukherjee, COO, Ricoh India, shared his perspective on the digital trends in print. He said, “The time to market is shrinking. In fact 33% of jobs will have a maximum turn-around time of 24 hours in future.”

At the Summit, Ajay Agarwal, CEO, Insight Communication and Print Solutions, promoted Komori’s printing solutions for commercial, book and packaging segments

'How should the Indian print industry measure success? Topline or bottomline', a panel discussion chaired by Ramu Ramanathan (in pic), editor, PrintWeek India; Mehul Desai, chairman and founder of Mumbai-based Mail Order Solutions and Iqbal Kherodawala

The 72-minute panel featured Pragati Offset, representing traditional print firms, professional print CEO, C J Jassawala of Thomson Press. Joining them were Nilesh Parwani of Vistaprint and Dharti Desai of MOS, touted as the disruptors

Paruchuri said, "The goal of any business organisation is to make money. Topline-bottomline should be secondary concerns. As a business organisation, one should always strive to get your efficiencies right and keep improving them."

Bringing on board, his experiences from Thomson, Jassawala added, "One should never use the past to take decisions about the future. The key is to strike the right balance to include cost rationalisation without compromising with quality."

Parwani, a former investment banker, brought to fore Vistaprint's operations. He said, "We had to start off by investing heavily in order to cater to our customer. Now it is imperative that our quality should be good enough to have repeat customers."

Desai stated, "Our investments have taken a toll on our bottom line. Fortunately for us, the business has been coming in to help us recoup most of that investment." MOS drives with the mantra - 'On time, every time'

Jit Khoon of Winson Press, Singapore, brought a little of his city to the Print Summit, 2014. In a candid presentation, he shared with the audience his lessons in print. One he emphasised was, "Looking at a wine bottle, one can understand that the bottleneck is at the top. Hence, change has to begin with the CEO."

As a part of the Masterclass session, Pankaj Shah, CEO of Supack and chairman of WICMA and Ajay Mehta of SMI Coated Products, presented trends and opportunities in corrugated and label industries, respectively. They highlighted the challenges of the segments, while being equally enthused about the opportunities that lie ahead

Shah spoke about three things; technical upgradations, coDex and research and development(R&D). WICMA developed CoDex, in January 2010 and the indexing takes place every quarter of a year. “This is a price indexing structure similar to Sensex which tracks cost which is similar to the tracking of stocks in the BSE,” said Shah.

According to Shah, 250 corrugation machines have been installed in India. In his concluding statement, he said, "To enable change and thrive we have embraced recent trends by developing codex and setting up state-of-the-art research and development centre.”

Mehta lured the audience with his statistics. 1. The current per capita label consumption in India is 0.25sq/m, as compared to the 15sq/m in US 2. At present, 25-30 label presses are installed each year in India 3. Over the next 15 years, if the Indian label industry grows at 10%, the per capita consumption and number of machines required will grow by four times; at 15%, it will grow by seven times and at 20%, it will grow by 13 times

The 500+ audience attended the day-long Summit, which offered an interesting spread of panels and speakers

Besides the delegates from various companies, the Print Summit 2014 was also attended by printing students from SIES Graduate School of Technology (in the picture), Government Institute of Printing Technology, Mumbai and MMP's Institute of Printing Technology, Panvel

The Print Summit commenced and concluded with a full house. All eyes are on PS 15 which coincides with BMPA's 60th anniversary. According to Dev Nair, the chairman of the 60 years of print celebrations, "the plans are huge"