CtP forum for the pioneers and leaders of the Indian Printing Industry
P. Narendra of Pragati Offset kicks off the CtP forum meeting
Like in the past, after major international exhibitions like Drupa and Ipex, TechNova continued to hold ‘yatras’ in various cities of India. Recently, 120 industry leaders and print professionals were invited to interact with five leading manufacturer vendors of CtP Systems in the world namely Agfa, basysPrint, Creo, Esko-Graphics and Heidelberg. Unlike the usual sales talk by the vendors in such forums, TechNova had provided the vendors with a set of 16 pertinent questions, well in advance, segregating them into technology and business issues more relevant to the Indian industry.
One of the first successful users of CtP technology in the country, P. Narendra of Pragati Offset Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, kicked off the CtP forum meeting. He commented on ‘what was hot and what was not in CtP’ at Ipex 2002. He observed that CtP technology along with digital printing was indeed a dominantly featured technology at Ipex.
Internationally well-known print media experts to the Indian print industry were present at these fairs. For this occasion, Andrew Tribute, an eminent global expert on CtP systems and International editor of Seybold Publications was also invited. Unfortunately, Tribute could not make it, but sent a special presentation for the CtP forum focusing on the CtP trends and technologies prevalent in the west. TechNova’s Pranav Parikh made the presentation on Tribute’s behalf, which was followed by a vendor panel discussion.
Summing up, Amila Sanghvi of International Print-O-Pac, Delhi, emphasized the importance and value addition of such forums for the Indian printers. She observed that the overall mood was not ‘to buy or not to buy’ but ‘what to buy’. Burjor Poonawala of Comart Lithographers Limited also expressed a similar sentiment at the meeting.
It was decided that the CtP Forum would be an independent body and provide assistance to the current and prospective CtP users on new technologies and trends by way on online chat with experts, vendors and users on a regular basis. The forum would also provide links to various informative sites and would be exclusively available to the CtP Forum members.
