The Packaging South Asia one-day conference in Mumbai on 9 October at the Novotel Hotel in Andheri looks at the transformative possibilities of improving the packaging industry’s triple bottom line of profit, people, and planet. We are pleased to announce that among our other sponsors, supporters and collaborators, the global packaging consulting firm Packfora has joined us as a knowledge partner, which should help the conference program evolve in tackling some of the bigger questions for brands and their packaging suppliers. Several more sponsorships are likely to be announced in the coming days, as we recover from the huge rounds of events up and down the country.
While brands have generally seen packaging as something that supported their business, it is increasingly recognized as a key element that determines the brand’s commercial success. The shift is changing conversations in boardrooms just as much as it is among product managers, design studios and packaging innovators. As we have seen at recent events, leading converters are engaged with brand owners to shoulder the costs of innovations and responsible growth. Ethical brand owners are fully aware, but the discussions need to move to the next level, perhaps with guiderails or guardrails.
The choice of materials, recyclability, process and circularity now influence far more than price performance. They affect brand security, extended producer responsibility fees, supply-chain resilience, access to recycled materials, regulatory exposure and ultimately long-term competitiveness. The brands and packaging material suppliers that recognize these multiple parameters earliest will be best positioned to implement and succeed.
As a contributor to the continuity, resilience, and success of consumer brands, packaging provides one of the key fuels for a brand’s agility in rapidly evolving markets and ultimately its growth and capacity to scale. Future products and packaging compliance with regulations will require not just technology but also innovations that enable integrity, efficient supply chains, and ultimately brand success.
The interactive and conversational PSA Conference sessions will examine the new role of packaging in a changing context of consumers, including Gen Z and Gen Alpha, as well as the role of startups and eCommerce. It will present packaging experiences, choices, and case studies of brands and packaging suppliers collaborating to unlock technology-led value.
The PSA Conference in Mumbai on 9 Ocotber will take up the rising use of AI in supply chain functions including rapid decision–making in formats and pricing based on shelf feedback, customer engagement, and data analysis in production processes. eCommerce will be addressed as a dynamic category. The conference is not about one type of packaging, nor is it about one type of technology. It recognizes the role of multiple levels of packaging for every product, from food, pharma, FMCG, luxury, mass luxury, commodities, white goods, and eCommerce and QuickCommerce.
At a time of intense cost pressure on raw materials and overall inflationary conditions, our one-day conference in Mumbai this year looks at the transformative possibilities of improving the packaging industry’s profitability by examining the efficiencies of the supply chain to reduce bottlenecks and constraints with data, AI, and automation. Can innovations and practical steps streamline the interdependencies and align the processes of brand owners, material suppliers, packaging converters, copackers, and retailers?
We plan to examine the issues of compliance and competition in an open economy. Can companies that comply with various regulations compete with companies that don’t? Are reverse auctions by brand owners really the most efficient method of price discovery for packaging? Are there too many packaging suppliers? Or is the problem that they are undifferentiated?
How can sustainability enable resilience in today’s context and the foreseeable future? Can the industry build an ecosystem in which excellence in quality and efficiency go hand in hand with profitability?
The Packaging South Asia Conference in Mumbai on 9 October plans to look at growth and scaling strategies beyond simply adding printing and converting capacity. It will discuss investment in automation and innovation and how to get these to yield quantifiable results that add to the bottom line.
The next set of innovations is not necessarily a new machine or technology, but perhaps concepts and ecosystems that begin with industry leaders agreeing on the challenges. And starting conversations that are influential and collaborative with researchers, design thinkers, tech, and raw material suppliers, converters, co-packers, and brand owners. Cooperation in industry is often looked at with skepticism, and it is true that in a big industry there are many forces at work that are not open to it.
However, we have never thought that industry growth is a zero–sum game, and largely the overall growth and improvement and the implementation of new technologies have borne us out. At the heart of this is the number of creative industry leaders, especially those in Western India and the Mumbai region. We are getting a good response from participants, and we expect this to increase in momentum in the coming 36 days, especially from across the leading packaging centers and communities in South, East, and North India.
This is a next-generation conference – literally and in terms of building economic products and packaging systems that are data- and cloud-aware. We invite the most adaptable and agile brands and packaging suppliers who can articulate the challenges and share their experience and ideas for the development, marketing, and supply of new products.
Possibilities and ideas emerge from sharing and participating. Join us for these interesting conversations in Mumbai on 9 October at the Novotel in Mumbai.
Register now: https://thepackagingsouthasia.ippstar.org/
