The future of the industry is in safe hands — The Noel D'Cunha Sunday Column

According to the Avendus Wealth-Hurun India U40 List 2025, 201 entrepreneurs under age 40 manage enterprises valued at INR 31-trillion, accounting for nearly 1/11th of India’s GDP. This group, which is 83% first-generation, showcases a major shift in India’s business landscape, with companies employing over 1.2 million people and contributing significantly through technology and services.

In this context, PrintWeek’s Forty Under 40 list assumes a heightened significance. The list recognises and celebrates the exceptional achievements of young professionals in the print and packaging industry in India. These rising stars have transformed the industry through innovative ideas, technical expertise, and a commitment to excellence.

The secrets to their success
Most of the Forty Under 40 winners said the shop floor is their favourite part of the factory. This floor is defined by three main categories — human capital, process harmony, and advanced technology.
A large number of leaders cite the people (their energy, dedication, and attention to detail) or the culture (sense of ownership, mutual respect, and collaborative spirit) as their favourite part of the factory. Likewise, leaders value a clean, organised, and workflow-optimised production floor where “everything is aligned, it’s poetry” during a smooth run.

The hidden strengths of these businesses reveal a commitment to quality, process R&D, and technological diversification, which gives them a distinct competitive edge.

One company’s secret is its ability to employ sheetfed offset, rotary silkscreen, flatbed silkscreen, flexography, rotogravure, and digital printing, all under one roof. One leader schedules “innovation hours” where the production floor goes silent for brainstorming, which is the source of their best process improvements. A key financial secret is a pre-press strategy that helps cut the initial cost of a new job to its lowest point. For a commercial printer, the secret is that a “large part of the revenue today is online, through web-to-print,” which is seeing double-digit growth. One factory’s secret is that key machine operators are cross-trained across processes, giving the company unusual flexibility during peak loads and tight timelines. Another secret is treating customers’ brands as their own, taking complete ownership and involving themselves in the process long before briefs are finalised.

The investment driver
For the next-generation industry movers, investment is less about maintenance and more about a strategic push for speed, quality, and market diversification. The message is capacity building and scaling up. A significant portion of planned investment is earmarked for major expansion projects. This includes multi-crore initiatives aimed at increasing manufacturing capacity to meet growing domestic and international demand. For instance, some companies have confirmed large expansion plans, such as a INR 21-crore investment to expand their production footprint.

The primary desire is for state-of-the-art production machinery that offers superior automation and print quality. This includes investing in the latest generation of printing presses, such as the Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75, which provides speed and efficiency to stay competitive.

The strategic investment is heavily tilted towards future-proofing their businesses by moving beyond traditional commercial printing. The consensus is that to meet the future demands of a rapidly evolving industry, leaders must “Build for where the market is going, not for comfort.”

Grab the February issue of PrintWeek to check the full list of winners, or download here. 

The vision of the dream factory
The most inspiring factories, or “dream factories,” visited by the Forty Under 40 industry leaders share the characteristics of precision, cleanliness, and process discipline. Of these global examples, European and US factories are particularly admired for their emphasis on cleanliness, meticulous planning, and systems designed for ultimate efficiency. Companies like Jyoti CNC Automation in Rajkot are a source of inspiration featuring automation, precision engineering, clean production systems, and Industry 4.0 technologies in perfect harmony. Many winners spoke about “scale and high-output execution.

As Ashish Bhushan, country head of Haymarket Media, said, “The ambition is often to blend the process discipline of Western factories with the scale, speed, and execution intensity of Chinese plants.” Large-scale facilities like the JSW Steel Vijaynagar township and highly automated plants such as Graphic Packaging’s Hoogerheide and MM Packaging’s Trier are noted as best-in-class examples.

In addition to design-led systems, the best facilities are seen as ecosystems that balance technology with human judgment and efficiency without overworking people.

Winners highlighted the energy, noise, movement, and the “hum of machines” as the “pure music” of entrepreneurship, where ideas meet execution. Also, the importance of a workflow where every job has checks built in and corrected along the way, not just inspected at the end. The obsession with process discipline allows companies to move fast without losing control. This is critical to sustaining quality at scale.

Excitement overwhelms headwinds
The key drivers of optimism among the next-gen leaders are innovation and technology. Isha Deshpande of Trigon Digipack rated her excitement as a perfect five, noting that the industry is “rapidly evolving with new technology” and has plenty of opportunities for innovative ideas.

While enthusiasm is high, the young leaders are not blind to current pressures. Vidur Kanoria of TCPL Packaging, who rated his excitement at four, noted that “things have slowed down” and that “pricing/competition makes our job difficult and restricted,” though he added there is still “a lot of scope and exciting potential.”

The message from the Forty Under 40 professionals is that success comes from adapting to changing times and creating growth opportunities. 

Grab the February issue of PrintWeek to check the full list of winners, or download here. 

Corrigendum: In the issue, Dhruwin Shah’s name was incorrectly spelt as Dhruvin Shah. Dhruwin Shah is the head of operations at Color Point. The error is sincerely regretted.