The MMS Round Table conference was launched in 2016, the first held as a power-lunch round table as part of the Printer’s Day celebration. And this year it is going to be no different. The theme of the MMS Round Table Conference is: Digital Print Unplugged – Digital 2022 – Thinking Sensibly About Print In An Uncertain World.

Dhote shared data from a PrintWeek survey conducted by Noel D'cunha, the managing editor of PrintWeek which asked the following question: Which sector are you upbeat about?

Dhote said, as per the survey: 26% said corrugated brown box; 22% said mono cartons and 16% said tags & labels. Dhote said, the number that grabbed his attention was: 36% said digital print. This he felt augurs well for the MMS RT discussions.

He described the process of how the MMS think-tank invited digital print business owners who have invested in digital print. Dhote said, "Some of them have walked the walk and talked the talk in 2022 - and will continue to do so."

Dhote shared three mantras with the MMS round table delegates. He said, all of us love to talk about cost, value-addition, customers’ satisfaction and higher pricing/margins. But as someone who played the digital print game, one thing all of us needs need to understand is: Whether it is return on investment (ROI), return on capital employed (ROCE) and return on equity (ROE), it all depends on how you measure your own digital print company - and how much capital was invested and what the returns are ..."

Inauguration ceremony at MMS Round Table 2022

Dhote's second mantra was: Like a tough customer teaches you the best lessons. Treat these MMS RT sessions like a discussion with a tough customer. He said, "If you want to learn, then listen to the tough customers. Some of our tough customers want us to deliver within five hours. Some of them want product quality to be acceptable at 0.001% and no more. Some tough customers insisted that we change our manufacturing processes." Dhote stated, digital print is equal to a perpetual learning curve with tough customers.

Dhote's third mantra was about data. He said, "All of us discuss the usefulness of data mining but how many of us actually deploy it?" . Dhote warmed up to the theme when he said, "Today, data is becoming the most precious entity for any kind of industry and for every activity we perform. Whether it is related to maintenance, print performance, optimisation of production, job planning, decision making, planning, troubleshooting, criticality of the job, opportunity assessment etc."

Dhote felt the digital print industry must try to initiate a conversation during the MMS RT about the power and use of data and how one can use the analytics. "It would be great if we can explore how as digital print business owners - all of us can benefit from the vast data which is available on a fingertip inside a digital print plan … The data is there but we simply don't know what to do with it."

Each table at the MMS Round Table has 10 delegates, one print expert and one industry expert, who deliberate at length on a specific subject and tap into the combined knowledge bank at the table.