India is expected to become the third-largest consumer market in the world after China and the US. New technologies along with a rise in e-commerce, urbanisation, changing lifestyles and increased personal health awareness has accelerated the growth of the print and packaging markets.
Print and packaging is the first thing that attracts consumers-First moment of truth. This plays an important role, especially in the consumer goods industry.
Packaging has turned out to be a necessary step for any product-launching strategy irrespective of industry sectors. Visually appealing graphics on packaging draws the consumers to buy products whether offline or online.
Consumers mostly consider an attractive packaging for high quality, thus premium products are often seen in more consumer-friendly and attractive packaging with more finishes. Thus, the print and packaging sectors have been migrated into a new business opportunity. This includes thousands of packaging companies, including raw material suppliers and processing from designing and printing.
In India, the sector has been seeing constant growth with an increase in packaged food consumption, awareness and desire for quality products. The growth has been seen throughout the supply chain either with packaging focused design agencies or brands moving to use Packaging Brand Management companies for their end to end services.
India continues to be the most preferred destination for companies looking to offshore and it’s not just IT but also packaging premedia and prepress services. Brand management companies in the US, UK, Europe and Australia started partnering with offshoring partners in India to take advantage of low costs and time difference.
Larger brand management companies relied on acquisitions to build a strong base in India. In the beginning, those were only for offshoring and little were they interested in the local market. The multinational FMCG companies at times took their services, a few discontinued due to the high cost.
While some decided to stick to the traditional way of asking the agencies to do the artworks adaptation and legal changes and plate makers/ printers for prepress. Sooner or later brand managers realised the importance of colour and how the consistency of the same is important in shopper decision making.
It has never been more important than in today’s digital world of shopping where consumer scrolls rapidly through multiple items and the brands are reliant on the instant recognition of the brand colour / unique shape of the brand to slow down the consumer to make it in their basket.
This has transitioned and given rise to packaging brand management companies who offer support in both online and offline packaging services. Right from artwork services, prepress until ecommerce pack shots and agile contents for digital shopping, these companies take care of everything.
Not just larger multinationals but even start-ups and regional FMCG companies have started decoupling their requirements and use these agencies for their Packaging requirements. They have realised that onboarding a specialised packaging partner will allow them to reduce the cost in the packaging supply chain, and maintain visual consistency in all packages. It will also control the appearance of brand assets reproduced across all different printing processes and substrates.
These Brand Management companies as well have acknowledged the potential India possess and have tailored their offerings to suit India’s market. This will be done either in terms of prices or offering be it Packshots for India specific retailers like Walmart, Big basket and amazon or creating an India specific mandate sheet for legal meteorology.
Our Country is at a tipping point in terms of growth in the economy or in terms of manpower development. We are entering into a new era of growth with the rise of such new specialised domains and collaborative efforts to identify improvements for today. We can predict solutions to deliver in future shall be the answer to unlock the full potential of who we are. This will push us towards becoming the world’s largest consumer market.
About the Author
Vineeth A Viswanathan is the Business Director at SGSCO. He is a specialized senior management executive with experience in delivering and sustaining revenue. This has ultimately made enough profit in highly competitive B to B markets especially in APAC , MEA and European regions .
Vineeth is an Electronics and Communication engineer. He has vast experience in running a business and consulting in various technical and non technical fields. These areas include Computer aided design, communications , App development ,Trading and the Advertising. He has been providing these services across 14+ countries.
