The theme of his session focused on commercial and technology trends of print markets in USA and Mumbai.

Saggiomo presented his balanced view on the printing industry. He started his speech by saying: Printing will not go away. “Printing remains a key element of marketing mix for the foreseeable future. Typically, traditional technology co-exists with newer technologies,” said Saggiomo.

Anticipation of reality and changing accordingly was the theme of Saggiomo’s presentation. Saggiomo shared the tale of two companies: IBM and Eastman Kodak. Both the companies were founded in early 1800s but today one is booming while other is bankrupt. Saggiomo added, “The
factors responsible for this lie in the organisations’ leadership skills, courage and definition of reality.”

Stressing on the fact that change is inevitable even in printing industry, Saggiomo forecasted that Indian print industry will change intensively.  He said, “Indian industry may not follow the steps of
the industry in USA rather it may leapfrog skipping some steps in between.”

According to Saggiomo, printing industry is shrinking in the developed economies. However, China and India are witnessing a growth story.

Economy and technology are the two significant headwinds industry is facing. “Economy will definitely improve though when and how remains a mystery. People are concentrating on digital technologies. 60% of agencies state that they are less focused on print.”

The industry participants must transform or suffer consequences. “If all you do is to print in traditional way, you could have difficulties in future. Most companies are becoming clinical about their business processes.”

Change is indeed necessary to thrive and for this Saggiomo recommends the printing firms to hire sales people, according to him, acquiring companies can also be an option to enable change and capital expenditure can lead to significant change.

At the end of the session Saggiomo requested the CEOs of three print firms in Mumbai, which included Tushar Dhote of Dhote Offset Technokrafts, Iqbal Kherodawala of Printline Reproductions, and Fred Poonawala of Comart Lithographers to elaborate their business models. The CEOs briefly explained how they enabled change and acquired growth for their business.

Vishwanath Shetty, owner at PrintWorks and Vasant Goel of Gopsons Printers shared their roadmap for implementing strategies. Shetty said, "Being a commercial printer, I focus on how I could enhance my product portfolio with products such as acrylic, CD/DVD etc other than paper to offer printplus services to augment the acivity to cover up the loss of commercial printing. It can be adding an inhouse designing team as well."

Goel said, "We try to take a viewpoint from the market and understand from our customer about our positives and negatives. The customer remains with us for our quality and faster delivery. So, we decided to choose customers who will pay us the right value."

"The printer must defend his core business and try to grow and expand it. To identify and fuel new growth engine through tranformation should be the goal," concluded Saggiomo.