​K Selvakumar, director of Lovely Printers in Sivakasi shared the journey of his father as and how he began his journey in 1961 as a job worker to being one of the top printers. He spoke about how the investment began with a printing press being purchased thanks to home jewels being pawned.

Selvakumar mentioned how his father provided confidence to the sons to venture into a high investment. He told the sons that "It was not a paltry investment  and assured that if this project doesn’t take off he would pay back the loan." The family took this as a challenge and marched on. This is because when "you see the goal, you do not see the obstacle."

Later Selvakumar spoke about how his father managed to repay his debts. And from job work, Lovely upped the ante and invested in a fleet of four-colour presses.

Selvakumar said one goal and principle at Lovely: 24 hours delivery. You should know your strength, your specialisation. He said, in the print business one needed to build trust. He said, "This is highly imperative in any on-going business. Be it your customer, family or employees."

The turning point, he said, was an investment in a Rs 1.3 crore Linotype imagesetter - and the investment helped in transforming the image of Lovely Offset in 1995. It provided Lovely the confidence and impetus to explore "design". That's how Lovely embarked on the Lovely cards "brand".  

Later, Lovely focussed on replacing the old work horses and increasing the built up area. He spoke about how the group invested in a Muller Martini binding line. He mentioned "risk appetite" when making an investment. And one does not have "To wait till you get 100% data to make a business decision."

Selvakumar said, "The Lovely team listened to customers very carefully. Lovely focussed on increasing our book binding capacities and look forward to acquiring technologies to widen the product range."  

He said, "Every industry has to make profit , focus on wastage and  productivity and generate reserves for the future. He said, "Never stretch your limit beyond the boundaries of calculated risk." He added, "One has to take calculated risk (not to be mistaken with gambling) to be successful in business, high risk and high gains.

Later Selvakumar spoke about Covid (the greatest disruption in 2020) and how the team at Lovely managed during and after Covid. During this period, Lovely paid a bonus to the team members despite the adverse economic situations and gained enormous trust with their employees. He said the key was "reserves and surplus which helped Lovely and its team members to sustain during these tough times."  Due to the adverse impact of Covid on China, Lovely was "bombarded" by orders for book printing.

The way forward, Selvakumar felt is an industry status of the printing industry, lobbying, building systems, ERPs, certifications, exports, green energy and practises.  

Finally, Selvakumar highlighted the importance of solar power. He said electricity is going to be a major challenge in the coming days, and so, let’s not ignore it. He said, everyone must explore solar power to overcome this situation. He urged the audience to take care and nurture the environment and save the planet.