In a freewheeling chat with Benjamin Daniel, Pragati Group’s director Harsha Paruchuri shares the receipe of success
PMEA: Being a renowned commercial printer in Asia, what influenced or prompted Pragati to enter into the world of packaging print?
Harsha Paruchuri (HP): In the year 2000, we were looking at how internet would change things and we felt that 10 years down the line most of the things in commercial printing may or may not exist. So we looked at packaging and the first thought was, everything needs to be packaged, and second, the Indian consumer was getting more and more sophisticated and wanted similar packaging to what is seen in European shelves. So given both of these things, we ventured into packaging.
PMEA: That’s a very straightforward answer. Since you specialised in offset printing you obviously got into carton-based packaging?
HP: Yes, we got into cartons as offset printing specialty could be extended.
PMEA: So, when did you get into narrow-web labels and what’s your take on the labels and narrow web printing and conversion?
HP: We got into labels and rigid boxes in the year 2007. After being in carton packaging for over seven years, we knew that the customer requirement was in different areas of packaging like labels and rigid boxes.
Rigid boxes are niche. A lot of equipment and printing remains the same. Our investment in this was more in machines that would put all the components together in making a box. Rigid boards were already being used by us for hard case books, papers and finishing materials.
However, Labels was another area where we saw a lot of potential, but it did involve learning a new print process (flexography) and investments in high-cost print machines, but we felt this was a potential we must explore.
PMEA: Being a commercial printer, what challenges did you face while venturing into packaging? In terms of workflow, staffing and operations in general. What advice or word of caution would you give to people transitioning from commercial printing to packaging print?
HP: Firstly, Commercial printing is not yet dead, we thought in 10 years from 2000 it would be, but instead we were 2.5 times the size that we were in 2000, so we saw a huge growth. But now I do see it flattening out a bit. I think in general, if you look at commercial printing there are those who are doing basic printing like manuals, annual report or printing basic catalogues or this information based printing. That kind of business is nearly gone away or on its way out. But where it is not just information based, but a touch and feel or has an emotional connect, is certainly growing. For example, a real estate brochure that is quite large in size to portray how big the project is or one with the finishing effects like foiling, touch effect and so on and so forth.
I think this part of the sector is going to grow, so it depends on where the commercial printer is currently, so there still a lot of scope for commercial printing.
That said, for a commercial printer moving into packaging is not a walk into the segment. For example, the grain direction theory. Not many printers follow, but do get away with it. That may not be possible in packaging because if the grain direction is not horizontal to the carton then the stiffness of the whole package when you hold it goes for a toss. The other thing with packaging is pre-press consistency. For a packaging buyer the consistency ranks higher than whether he is 99% or 100% in the print quality.
Just having a printing machine does not mean you can directly get into packaging. Knowledge about the industry & the market is very important.