Interview with Mr. A. Appadurai, Country Business Manager, HP Indigo Digital Press- India & Sri Lanka HP India
Mr. A. Appadurai is responsible for HP Indigo’s Digital Press and the Inkjet Business for India and Sri Lanka. He supports an extremely dynamic team of printing and packaging specialists, product managers and customer success managers. He has over 17 years of experience in the digital printing and label and packaging industries. He has vast experience in working with brands and agencies and has been involved in some of the world’s largest digital packaging projects for Coke and ITC etc. Durai holds an MBA and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
Q1. How do you see the scope and growth of the Digital Packaging sector in India compared to other formats of Printing?
“India is a high growth and promising economy and we are witnessing that the future of packaging & commercial printing is driven by digital printing”. Digital printing has evolved by leaps and bounds in India and one key-trend driving this shift has been the evolution of HP’s Graphics Solutions Business offerings from devices to effective marketing solutions. We are thrilled to see increased traction with Indian brands from various verticals, as they embrace the power of digital printing to reach their end customers innovatively.
Q2. What’s do you see is the Brand Owners perspective to expand the current packaging portfolios towards digital packaging formats?
Though the trends are changing across industries but we believe that these packaging formats help reaching out to customers & brands from various verticals. Apart from establishing connect these Brand owners share some good insights, consumer requirements, experiences and feedbacks with us which in return help us learn & understand many different elements to work on upgrading things at our end also. The businesses that thrive today are those that know how to make their customers feel unique in a crowded world. At HP, we understand this need and continue to enable customers, brands and print service providers with new innovations and unique experiences for the growth of industry.
Q3. What are some of the Digital Technology advantages at HP that make you a Global market leader?
Digital printing technology is quickly becoming the number one enabler of consumer engagement and this is changing all the traditional packaging & commercial print ideas. Brands, Print Convertors and Print service providers all over the world are looking for new and creative ideas to engage with consumers, to connect with them online and offline, and to stand out on the shelves. Packaging has gone from being purely functional, to serving as a communication tool. However, the consumer engagement is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reaping the benefits of digital printing. Supply chain optimization. Printing on-demand, what is needed, when is needed, has enabled brands to save on inventory obsolescence (brands often throw away an estimated 30% of their inventory due to obsolescence), storage and transportation. So, digital printing solutions like HP Indigo can only fulfill the commitments and help our customers to achieve excellence.
Q4. How do you plan to make inroads in Tier 2 and Tier 3 Cities and bring the printer closer to brand owner manufacturing units?
Today in this dynamic world, you have to innovate yourself and expand your reach. As a printing/packaging converter, if you are not ahead of the trend, you are behind it. You need to be thinking of ways to support brands, to educate them on the possibilities enabled by today’s technology in their efforts to gain consumers’ attention and save time and money. Some of the trends that you, as a labels and packaging converter, should keep an eye on are: Personalization and customization of packaging: in order to connect with today’s consumer in creative and relevant ways, brands all over the world are customizing, and often even personalizing their packaging. Some of the most innovative examples that highlight the use of this trend are:
1. Coca-Cola: from the famous names campaign, to reinventing relationships in India, to the unique campaign of colorful designs for every bottle using Mosaic, and labels with detachable bracelets to serve as entry to music concerts, Coca-Cola has adopted a strategy that is only enabled by digital printing.
2. Amarula: the South African cream liquor printed 400,00 unique labels featuring the iconic African elephant, to represent the same number of remaining members of the endangered species, in an awareness campaign, enabled by HP Indigo digital printing technology and HP SmartStream Mosaic.
3. Polycrol: One of the reputed brand “Piramal” in pharmaceuticals industry did Mosaic bottles for Polycrol and launched a unique campaign during the Durga Puja festival in eastern part of the India. They produced 1 lakh unique bottles using Mosaic for different variants of Polycrol.
4. Nutella: 7 million shrink sleeve and pressure sensitive labels, each with a one-of-a-kind design, were printed using HP Indigo and HP SmartStream Mosaic technology. The campaign proved so successful in Italy, that it is expected to be rolled out to France and Germany as well.
5. Café Franqueza: Non-profit organization, Ercus Foundation, has helped thousands of coffee growers in Mexico through its Cafe Franqueza project. Using an HP Indigo 20000 Digital Press, Café Franqueza has created a strong image and identity with personalized coffee bags, featuring the story of the farmer who cultivated the coffee.
6. Nescafé: featuring 300 of the top New Year’s resolutions on their coffee jar labels, which consumers could then track progress of online, Nescafe made use of mass customization opportunities to produce 14 million variable data labels and increase YoY sales by 10%.
7. Kit Kat: More than 56,000 unique personalized packs were offered to winners who entered a code from a regular Kit Kat pack into the dedicated website. Using web-to-print Smart Flow system and the HP Indigo 20000 Digital Press, Ultimate Packaging provided Nestle with complete supply chain control, traceability and individual product and detailed report analysis. The personalized packs were printed weekly and each one has a unique barcode and identification code generated from Smart Flow.