Leaders and impact-makers hit the sweet spot in the very first session

“One of the Delhi printers said, now that you’ve got your machine, I will not give you work,” said Singhvi. She continued, “I said, fine, I will not ask for your work. I will print what I process.” IPP installed three sheetfed presses in one year and has since expanded to produce the present 100 magazine plus another 20 book customers and 80-100 customers in packaging at the 2,50,000 sq/ft site in Noida.

Being a leader and impact-maker means two things for Gautham Pai of Manipal Technologies, part of a Rs 500-crore Manipal Group. First, you’ve got to take risk. “We invested close to $100-million in infrastructure to cater to the publishing (commercial) segment and in other print businesses,” he said.

No business can continually add value to customers in this dynamic business environment without innovation. “Commercial printing is a highly fragmented market with limitless opportunities for growth, but restricted by innovation and value-addition in services,” he said.

Along with risk, there’s another crucial requirement for leaders: having a team that is focussed on customer orientation and constant improvement. “The talented workforce has understood the nuances of the operations and gives form to the vision of the management team. There is a perfect alignment between our vision strategy and implementation which had lead to our customers treating us as their outsourced print service provider,” said Pai.

Singhvi and Pai, were joined by other leaders and impact-makers at the panel discussion, which kick-started the day one sessions at the Print Summit 2012.

Saket Kanoria of TCPL, Dev Alapati of Kala Jyothi, Mukesh Dhruve of Repro India were the CEOs who have lived up to their aspirations and have stayed tuned to their company’s mantra of success, shared their views.

The session was moderated by Maneck Daver of Spenta Multimedia of Mumbai.

Daver began the session by asking the panellist if Indian-based print company could become a billion dollar enterprise. “If Indian’s export today is 200-million USD as against China’s 24-billion USD, where will this volume to meet the Chinese figures come from?”

Mukesh Dhruve of Repro replying to the question, said: "We compete with ourselves instead of competing with the world, and that’s a problem.”

Daver was of the view that we grow due to competition and we have to create a benchmark in the domestic market to make our quality acceptable. Dhruve said, “It’s not because of the cost consideration that buyers come to India, the quality, services and timelines are the other reasons. And we have been doing that successfully.”

Saket Konoria of TCPL, said he believes in the India growth story and the whole world is looking at India. “The Indian GDP grows at a 6-10%, packaging and print will also grow along those lines, if not more.”

Dev Alapati was of the opinion that more business acumen will not take any enterprise to the billion mark level. “We need infrastructure support from the government. There are three day power cuts in Hyderabad and this is just one of the many problems,” he said.

Davar’s next question was: how do we take brand India abroad?

Dhruve said, “Today 40% of Repro volumes comes from the domestic market. Today if I have more orders and I don’t have the capacity to cater to the enhanced demand, I need to seek outside help. But there are not enough outsourcing options.

Is consolidation of market the answer to all woes? “There are few large printers and many small printers. Is this an international scenario or is specific to India?” asked Maneck.

Pai said that it’s a common trend. “Print has always been fragmented. Consolidation, if it has to happen, will happen at the upper end of the pyramid. It will need capital infusion.”

Talking about print being family-owned business, Davar asked the panel, why is print business primarily a family-owned?

Alapati said: “Print is a broad term and is misused sometimes in terms of professionalism. Print according to me is commercial print and commodity print. Commercial print is connected with family-owned businesses because of the close proximity with the customer.”

Dhruve said that there are approximately 2,50,000 print firms in India and we need to consolidate to make print an industry. “We need a Devang Mehta of NASSCOM who made the IT into an industry.”

Singhvi of IPP said that her company is a professional managed, family-owned company. “You need passion to run a company and that comes from families only.”

The topic of equity infusion was also discussed. “Would a family-owned enterprise be agreeable to equity dilution?,”  asked Davar.

“We would not mind equity dilution, but we would not like to lose control,” said Singhvi. The other panellist too agreed.

Then what should be the norms for buy-outs. “There are no restrictions,” said Kanoria. Then how did TCPL grow? “We focussed on our business and reinvested cash into our own business to grow,” said Kanoria.

Discussing the future of print, the panelists were upbeat about the future. Kanoria said that his is a packaging company, and there no cause for worry there. “Growth is assured,” he said.

According to Dhruve, Repro has its fingers in all the segment, digital, sheetfed and webfed. “We are also ready for eBooks, should that industry boom. However, I am of the opinion that printed books will not die for the next ten years though at platform like London Book Fair etc. It is said that books will not die for the next 100 years,” he said.

Singhvi agreed with Kanoria that packaging is growing but felt that the book segment is dicey but should not be a worry in our lifetime. Education is still growing in India, though reference book is on decline. Magazine numbers are low but they are there,” she said.

The panel discussion was followed by a Q&A session with the audience.