At the Radisson Blu in Kochi, P Sajith, managing director of Bindwel Stelda Group, does not begin his keynote with export statistics or machinery specifications. Instead, he begins with a map.
On the screen appears a five-kilometre radius around the seminar venue. Within that compact circle lie his birthplace, childhood home, school and college. The physical coordinates of his formative years. It is a quiet but deliberate opening.
Before speaking about deglobalisation, supply chains or digital disruption, Sajith wants the audience to consider something more fundamental. Distance.
“My life expanded with distance,” he says. “But print’s future lies in intelligent proximity.”
It is a striking formulation. Over the next hour at Print and Beyond 2025, the managing director of Bindwel Stelda Group builds a compelling case that geography, once taken for granted in print, is once again becoming decisive. The industry, he suggests, must rethink not just what it produces, but where it produces and for whom.
In an age when files can move instantly across continents, physical print is increasingly defined by how close it sits to consumption. The future, he argues, will belong not to the biggest plants, but to those who understand precisely where they are needed.
The business of distance
Printing has always had an unspoken economic boundary. Every printed product carries a silent calculation. How far can it travel before freight begins to erode the margin? At what point does logistics outweigh production efficiency?
For years, many printers expanded capacity on the assumption that scale would solve most competitive pressures. Larger presses, bigger plants and higher throughput promised cost advantages. Yet in the current environment, Sajith argues that geography is regaining primacy.
Corrugated packaging provides the clearest example. In most cases, corrugated boxes remain economically viable within a radius of around 100 to 200 kilometres. Beyond that, the combination of bulk and freight cost rapidly compresses margins. Even highly automated plants cannot fully offset this structural limitation.
This is why corrugation is less a scale business and more a geography business. Success depends on proximity to customers, particularly in FMCG and industrial clusters. Plants exist where consumption exists. The economics are shaped by distance as much as by efficiency.
Flexible packaging operates with a similar logic, although the drivers differ slightly. Laminates and films are closely tied to filling lines. Time sensitivity is high. Integration with production schedules is critical. Here too, proximity often determines competitiveness.
Mono cartons reveal another dimension. Brand owners increasingly demand shorter launch cycles and greater certainty of delivery. Delays are costlier than before. In this environment, localised supply chains reduce risk. A carton supplier located closer to the customer can respond faster to artwork changes, compliance updates and volume adjustments.
Different segments behave differently, but the underlying principle is constant. Print economics cannot be separated from geography.
Capability determines reach
Books, however, complicate the picture.
India’s strength in book printing is anchored in educational publishing. Government textbook printing alone accounts for approximately 2.5-billion copies annually. That volume has created deep industrial capability in managing scale, paper procurement, binding consistency and time-bound delivery.
Yet when books cross borders, capability becomes more important than scale.
In markets such as Africa, India has historically supplied textbooks because of limited local paper manufacturing capacity and logistical constraints in several landlocked countries. However, Sajith points to Bangladesh as an instructive example. Once paper mills were established locally, textbook printing quickly shifted inward. Distance advantages can evaporate when raw material ecosystems mature.
European markets tell a different story. Here, India has gained traction in complex illustrated children’s books and premium hardbound editions. These are not low-value commodity exports. They demand precision engineering, specialised finishing and strong quality control. Printers who once supplied basic paperbacks at two dollars per copy have, in some cases, increased value per book to nine dollars by handling greater complexity.
Complexity, in effect, allows books to travel further.
The United States market is currently influenced by a China plus one sourcing approach. Publishers are looking to diversify supply risk. This presents an opportunity, but only for those who can deliver consistent quality and manage compliance requirements.
Interestingly, Sajith notes that the strongest growth in books is not necessarily in exports, but within India. Digital printing has enabled publishers to move away from large speculative print runs. Instead, they are printing smaller quantities more frequently, often aligned with actual classroom sizes or niche demand.
He cites examples of print runs as precise as 126 or 221 copies. These are not symbolic numbers. They reflect real class strengths or specific institutional orders. Digital technology has made such precision economically viable.
“Books are travelling less but reaching more people,” he says.
The number of titles is rising, even as individual runs shrink. Regional language publishing is expanding. Second prints are no longer rare events. They are routine.
In this sense, distance in books is being reshaped not by freight, but by production technology and content fragmentation.
Risk is the new cost
If geography defines operational economics, risk now defines strategic thinking.
For decades, globalisation rewarded cost arbitrage. Production migrated to wherever labour or raw materials were cheapest. Long supply chains were tolerated because the savings justified the distance.
Today, risk is often more important than cost.
Pandemic disruptions, shipping delays and geopolitical tensions have exposed the fragility of extended supply networks. Procurement teams increasingly weigh reliability and predictability alongside price.
Sajith observes that manufacturers are now asking what can be sourced within India before looking outward. This does not imply isolation. It signals recalibration. He refers to the pharmaceutical sector, where API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) faced severe competition from China. The government did not do anything, thinking the value is added on finished product – medicine. But when supply chains reopened after Covid, we struggled - and now companies are trying to build API capabilities. The lesson for print is that overdependence on distant sources can create vulnerability.
At the same time, rising finished goods exports offer new opportunities. Smartphone exports from India have crossed approximately 30-billion US dollars in recent years. Packaging suppliers have followed these manufacturing clusters, establishing plants to serve mono cartons, inserts and related printed components.
When print is embedded within a finished product value chain, it benefits from the growth of that product category. Standalone export printing, by contrast, remains more exposed to local capacity development abroad.
“If India exported more finished goods, print would ride value, not chase volume,” Sajith says.
The distinction is important. Volume can disappear when local alternatives emerge. Value embedded within integrated supply chains is more resilient.
Education finds its anchor
The education sector offers a compelling counterpoint to narratives of digital displacement.
During the pandemic, digital schooling became unavoidable. Yet as physical classrooms reopened, parents and educators began to reassess the long-term effects of sustained screen exposure. Several countries have introduced restrictions on digital device use in schools. Debates around attention span and cognitive development have intensified.
Sajith points to an emerging consensus that physical reading reduces distraction and improves retention. When reading from a printed page, the reader is less likely to shift to another application or notification. Focus remains anchored.
For Indian printers, this is more than a philosophical observation. It has commercial implications. With one of the largest school-going populations in the world, India’s demand for textbooks remains structurally strong.
At the same time, digital print enables flexibility. Publishers can reduce inventory risk by printing smaller batches more frequently. Regional language content can be expanded without locking up capital in unsold stock.
Education is therefore not a battleground between print and digital. It is an evolving ecosystem in which print continues to play a central cognitive role.
From steel to systems
Sajith also challenges printers to look inward. Indian print has historically been asset-intensive. Investments in land and machinery have built impressive capacities across offset, packaging and post-press. Yet capacity alone does not guarantee competitiveness.
“Machines create capacity. People create relevance,” he says.
When customers visit a print facility, they are often shown presses and finishing lines. While impressive, these assets do not necessarily address the customer’s core concerns, which increasingly revolve around reliability, communication and risk mitigation.
Sajith argues that printers must invest more consciously in systems and people. Research and development, for instance, remains underdeveloped in many print shops. Testing new substrates, documenting failure cases and creating controlled sample runs can reduce uncertainty for customers.
He advocates transparency. Showing customers both successes and failures builds trust. Testing before committing reduces disputes. Proving capability before promising scale shifts conversations away from price alone.
In book printing, sample copies created under near production conditions can reveal potential issues such as spine colour variation or binding inconsistencies. While it may not always be possible to replicate full-scale production in a sample, the effort signals seriousness.
In an increasingly competitive market, differentiation may lie less in machinery lists and more in how well printers manage complexity.
The rise of hyperlocal
Consumer behaviour is evolving in subtle but powerful ways.
Quick commerce platforms have trained urban consumers to expect near immediate fulfilment. Purchases that once covered a week are now made daily. This habit formation has broader implications.
If consumers grow accustomed to same-day delivery for everyday goods, expectations may gradually extend to other categories, including books and customised print.
Digital files already travel instantly. The physical act of printing and delivering may increasingly occur closer to the point of consumption.
Hyperlocalisation becomes viable when digital production, data analytics and decentralised capacity align. Instead of shipping finished goods across long distances, printers may increasingly serve micro markets within tighter radii.
For Indian printers, particularly in metropolitan regions, this could reshape investment decisions. The question may no longer be how large a central plant should be, but how intelligently distributed capacity can meet demand.
Win at home first
Despite the global themes of his address, Sajith returns repeatedly to the importance of local credibility.
He recounts an early experience involving a small bookbinder who invested in automation. Previously made to wait outside publishers’ offices, the binder’s status shifted once reliability improved. Automation delivered consistency, and consistency earned trust.
Excellence in local markets precedes global recognition.
Sajith offers a personal example. A former global chief executive of a leading European binding equipment company, Kai Buntemeyer, travels from Rahden (Germany) to Thiruvananthapuram to work with Bindwel Stelda. The decision was not driven by marketing brochures. It was driven by sustained engagement and demonstrated capability.
Sometimes, he suggests, you do not need to chase the world. You need to build something strong enough that the world comes to you.
Choosing distance wisely
As the keynote draws to a close, Sajith returns to his central question. How intelligently will you choose your distance?
For corrugation, the answer may lie within a 200-kilometre radius. For complex book exports, it may lie in engineering sophistication. For mono cartons serving manufacturing clusters, it may lie in integration with industrial growth. For education, it may lie in cognitive relevance. For digital print, it may lie in accessibility and proximity.
The industry stands at a point where supply chains are shortening, risk considerations are intensifying, and digital tools are enabling hyperlocalisation. Sajith says, “In this environment, scale remains important, but it is no longer sufficient. The printers who thrive will be those who understand where they add the most value and who align their physical presence accordingly.”
Life, as Sajith reflects, may expand with distance. Print, increasingly, may succeed by coming closer.