As I write this with less than 55 days to drupa, the German and European visa process and the allied agencies in India seem to be much better organized than in the previous decades. There could be many reasons for this. Maybe the Europeans have realized that printers and converters are not desperate to migrate or merely interested in their machines and technology or talking about the future but are serious business people. Additionally, as both exhibitors and visitors, they may actually have something to show and say.
We have talked to Indian exhibitors who are taking several team members to the show because they are keen to show their structured organizations with technically sound response teams. These are companies built by multiple engineer partnerships with industry experience working for global companies. They are keen to listen to the drupa visitors who have niche and unique requirements. Apart from showing their machines and products, they want to project their capacity to provide a flexible range of solutions to drupa visitors from around the world.
Indian and Asian exhibitors want to highlight their development capacities in newer technologies – their abilities in software and mechatronic automation. Asian exhibitors understand that their strength in the global marketplace of the future will come from their agility and quicker implementation of new technology in smaller and more unique machines and solutions than their global counterparts.
The Asian visitors’ antennae
Indians at drupa represent a large and visible contingent partly because once they get there, they spend several days in their comprehensive search for the useful and the new. However, right from Australia to Iran, including Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar to Singapore, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the most discerning technical visitors with money in their pockets will come from Asia.
The Asians are the future. Like their Asian colleagues, the Indian printers and converters have several sharp antennae that send clear signals of what they see and hear to their experienced processing systems in terms of competitive business advantage. There is an antenna for recognizing which new technologies work in terms of required and not just ‘good enough’ quality. This antenna is linked to the processor for appropriate applications.
The third antenna is price and currency-sensitive for processing the actual cost of a new machine or technology. Since our financial systems and economics are stringent, money for capex and consumables, including customs duties do not allow high leverage. This is where the global manufacturers could benefit from listening to the prudent Indians and Asians who show up in Düsseldorf. The past two decades have shown that when the suppliers from the developed economies didn’t listen or adapt to what we tried to tell them, they were forced into insolvency, divestments and consolidation.
The Super Content Group – let’s make a video for you at drupa24
The Super Content Group consisting of 20 media platforms, including several of ours, will provide professional video making and distribution at drupa 2024 and beyond. The group members led by the Inkish team are offering to make quality videos at the show that will be quickly edited and subtitled in the numerous languages of the Supergroup partners and broadcast on their websites. Three Indian exhibitors have signed up and we (Packaging South Asia and Indian Printer and Publisher) expect a few more to sign up before 21st April for the special rates for a 15-minute video-making slot at your stand. You can contact Mohit Tyagi at mohit@ippgroup.in or me if you would like to talk about this opportunity to improve your participation at drupa 2024. Also, contact us if you would like to join our traditional TeamIndia@drupa WhatsApp group.
Great summary and rightly said, With a lot of anticipation , we see a stronger, wiser , and more aware representation of the Asian Printing & Packaging Community .