P C Jain- Pioneer who introduced variable data labels in India

Nine years after a supermarket cashier in Troy, Ohio-USA, on the 26th of June 1974, scanned a barcode for the first time in history on a 67 cent 10 piece pack of Wrigley’s Chewing Gum, Prem Chand Jain popularly known as P C Jain, introduced variable data labels to India in shape of price marking labels. This was in 1983 as a precursor pioneering in barcode labels. Another seven years hence in 1990 he yet again led the country’s indulgence in producing and using barcode labels. This was almost 40 years after Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernhard Silver patented the barcode co-invented by them in the shape of conclavic rings of varying widths in 1951. Twenty years later in around 1971 George Laurer with support from Woodland, his colleague at that time in IBM, created the present day barcode. Barcodes have eventually become an absolute essential in modern day organized retail. The usage of barcodes that was initially limited to mega malls and retail stores have now found extensive usage in small local colony stores, industry, logistics, banking, travel and almost all segments of society. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), another invention whose history can be traced back to 1940 during World War II, has also found application in variable information labels in recent times. Jain’s company Great Eastern Impex now renamed GreatEastern IDTEDCH Pvt. Ltd. which he heads as Chairman, has truly pioneered the introduction and proliferation of variable data labels in India!

P C Jain was born in a family of hosiery traders in the small town of Patti some 45 KMs from Amritsar in Punjab. After initial schooling the family moved to Ludhiana, the industrial town of Punjab. Alumni of star college of Ludhiana, after his college education he took employment in a hosiery unit owned by the Oswal Group, where he worked for 3 years. He gained knowledge and experience of handling exports of yarn and imports of machinery, raw materials and equipment at a time when documentation and procedures were licensed, complicated and cumbersome. Coming from a family of businessmen, in 1966 Jain decided to venture out on his own. He took selling agency of some Ludhiana based hosiery companies and for the next 4-5 years he was selling for them to customers in MENA region countries. Nostalgically he reminisces that he used to carry two bags as baggage, one was always full of samples to demonstrate his offerings and book orders. He would never leave any city until the LC was established by the buyers who placed orders with him. There were times when he would even interact with buyer’s bank to expedite matters. Achieving a sale of 500,000 rupees at that time was a substantial amount with the exchange rate at just Rs.7.50 for one US Dollar! By 1975, he had made some good earnings and indulged further by starting exports of T-Shirts to UK, Germany and USA.  However when exports of these items became difficult due to quota restrictions imposed, he shifted focus. He started to import heat transfer presses and printing solutions to print on T-Shirts. His biggest customer then was the makers of Smash T-Shirts that gave him enough money to buy his own office in central Delhi’s Rajendra Place.

In 1983 he started Great Eastern Impex Co. in partnership with his brother in law. At that time he came in contact with Harjit Singh Kochhar of Giggles gift shop in New Delhi’s Connaught Place. This connection was the starting point of P C Jain’s journey into the world of variable information printing labels. Kochhar, during one of his foreign trips had bought a price marking hand labeler. When he ran out of labels he requested Jain who was experienced in import procedures, to help him import labels. Great Eastern Impex imported a full carton of price marking labels for Giggles from Monarch Marking Systems USA; that was their first indulgence in labels. The US based company Monarch saw an opportunity in Great Eastern Impex Co. and soon their sales person Cliff Cuttele landed in Delhi to meet P C Jain. He demonstrated the usage of labelers and how to open and load labels, Jain found it so interesting that they immediately headed towards Connaught Place to visit shops and asses the interest. Almost all customers wanted these machines. When they landed at Harjit Singh Kochhar’s shop Giggles, Kochhar was excited about the prospects of the business for his friend and took them all for dinner to his home and it was that day the decision was taken for Great Eastern Co. to be Monarch’s exclusive agent in India. In 1985-86, P C Jain and his brother in law decided to part company in business, so Jain in a new partnership with his clearing agent Prem Khanna and Surinder Singh Bakshi, a financer joined hands in their new venture GEIPL (Great Eastern Impex Private Limited) and became exclusive agents of Monarch Marking Systems USA for the next five years. They would import the Monarch Labelers and labels and distribute them. In 1986 A S Shekhawat who came from a publishing company joined GEIPL as a manager to expand their sales network and setting up dealership network across the country.

In 1991 GEIPL entered into a technical collaboration with Monarch to manufacture and sell labels in India with a Japanese ITOH label press that was re-engineered by Monarch in USA to their particular specifications to produce 5 different types of labels. This press was supplied by Monarch to GEIPL under a royalty agreement of paying 5% on sales to their foreign partner.  In 1992 Bakshi left the company leaving the reins of the venture in hands of P C Jain and Prem Khanna. In 1996 HSSIDC allotted to them a 2100 square meter plot in Gurgaon on which GEIPl built their double storied 25000 square foot factory building. By 1990 barcode usage had surfaced in India and GEIPL had already made up their mind to indulge. At almost the same time Shobhana Shah Dharia, an alumni of Wayen State University and working as a software engineer in Symbol Systems USA had migrated back to Mumbai India. She launched bar code scanning technology in the country to make complete Barcode solutions available.  With GEIPL being the first entrant in the trade to offer barcode labels and printers and Dharia offering scanning solutions the Barcode, the technology was available in totality. Proliferation of Barcodes started and by 1995 it was fully developed and being widely used.  There were two organizations that were offering barcode symbologies i.e. EAN or European Article Number from Europe and UPC or Universal Product Code from USA. GEIPL opted for adopting the European symbology.

IIP (Indian Institute ofPackaging) was identified by Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, for establishment of EAN India for the introduction of Bar Code Technology for export in India. The then Director of IIP P V Narayanan called a meeting in this regard and it was attended by  P C Jain, Shobhana Dharia and Sameer Parikh of Intellicon. It was decided to first form EAN India with license from EAN Europe and supported by IIP and Ministry of Commerce. In 1990, the country code 890 was allotted to India followed by the manufacturer’s code. The typical configuration of a barcode is; the first 3 digits is the country code followed by manufacturer’s code issued by EAN India and then the product code. The barcode becomes complete when the last check digit is added. Eventually to bring global uniformity in language controlling barcodes business, in 2005 EAN and UPC merged to create one body called GS1(Global Standard1) worldwide. In India the business is controlled by GS1 India covering all Indian manufacturers from segments like retail, Pharma, automotive, fmcg, cosmetic, liquor, etc. By the start of new millennium GEIPL had added another unit called Rachna Overseas Pvt. Ltd (ROPL) in its fold. ROPL was formed with wives of P C Jain and Prem Khanna as partners to produce thermal transfer ribbons for barcode printers and to be supplied to GEIPL. 16 years after being together as partners in 2002, Jain and Khanna, over a luncheon meeting decided to split amicably. ROPL was taken over by Prem Khanna while GEIPL remained with P C Jain.

P C Jain’s wife Usha is a home maker, their only daughter Ekta was born while they lived in Ludhiana. Ekta is now married and her husband is in business manufacturing injection molded cones for textile mills with factories in Ludhiana and Bhopal. Their son Shakti was born in Delhi in 1977 who, after schooling in St. Marks School Delhi, graduated in commerce from Venkateswara College New Delhi and followed it with an MBA in finance, sales and marketing from Rochester School of Technology in 2001. Shakti now manages the company as Managing Director while his father is the Chairman. Proudly P C Jain says, “Under Shakti Jain’s leadership the company’s sales that had initially dipped after division of assets amongst erstwhile partners, has doubled”! Carrying his father’s vision of moving ahead of time, Shakti foresaw that RFID labels will be the future. In 2012 Shakti and his wife Neha, who is now the Executive Director in the company, visited Spain to be trained in RFID technology and to see the RFID inlay insertion machine. In yet another pioneering step they bought this machine and became the first Indian label company to offer RFID Self adhesive labels. At this time they even changed the name of their company to Great Eastern IDTech Pvt. Ltd. so as to project its modern approach and indicate their digital offerings.  Great Eastern has had steady and smooth operations however the only challenge came when they took up a complete barcode and RFID project for Government’s warehouse management systems. They had estimated to complete the project in 3 months and it kept on getting delayed due to technical issues. Persistent efforts helped them achieve success in implementing the systems in one year. Their biggest order came when they supplied, installed and commissioned 2500 barcode printers to HDFC Bank in all their branches, some in distant places.

Great Eastern IDTech Pvt. Ltd. now has their manufacturing facility spread over 25000 square feet with 135 employees. They have five offices besides their head office in Gurgaon. These are at Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata. Sales that fell to Rupees 10.00 Crores after the split between partners in 2002, but after achieving a steady growth over the following years, it is expected to reach Rupees 32.00 Crores by 31^st March 2018. Two third of their business comes from consumables and one third from hardware and software. Barcode technology accounts for 85% of sales, RFID 5% and price marking is 10%. They sell 200,000 square meters per month of thermal transfer ribbon, convert 150,000 square meters per month of labelstock and sell 1 million RFID labels per year. Visualising future the father son duo expresses that by the year 2020, they will reach a turnover of Rupees 50 Crores just by organic growth.

In progressing years P C Jain has tried to give back to the industry and society that gave him success and recognition. Other than spending his quality time with his best friend, his grandson Samar Jain, he is involved with many charitable institutions. He initiated the formation of AIDC (Automatic Identification and Data Capture) Associationof India and was its founder president for the first two terms of 3 years each. The association was started with just 30 members and has now grown to 150 members with pan national presence. In 2012 the AIDC Association at its annual conference in Kovallam resort Kerala, conferred upon P C Jain the “Lifetime Achievement Award”!

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi February 2018

First published in Printweek India.

LMAI Brand Owners event at Delhi

Label manufacturers association of India (LMAI) organized an event for their Printer Members in the evening of 30th March 2018 titled:  “Brand owner’s perception of labels in changing scenario” at RADISSON BLU MARINA HOTEL CONNAUGHT PLACE New Delhi. The program had lead sponsors as AveryDennison, SMI Coated Products and DuPont. Support sponsors were Vinsak, FIG, Creative Graphics and J N Arora Group.

Speakers at the event included:

Barun Banerjee: Head of Packaging Nestlé South Asia region, Nestlé India Ltd.

Rahul Bhargava: Vice President, Packaging, SUN Pharma

Kousik Saha: Associate Director - Head Packaging Commercialization, PepsiCo

Amiya Pradhan AM- Corporate Packaging Dev., Dabur IndiaLtd. (FMCG division).

Deepak Manchanda: Packaging Expert

Sandeep Zaveri

The event having been restricted only to printer members and sponsors comprised of label printers and sponsors to the event yet it was fully booked and over 100 delegates attended. Past president LMAI, Sandeep Zaveri of Total Prints Mumbai who anchored the evening, opened the event by welcoming the guests and introducing the speakers to the audience. 

Kuldip Goel

LMAI President Kuldip Goel, Managing Director of Any Graphics NOIDA speaking next apprised the audience of his programs. He dwelled on his efforts and successful implementation of tree plantation in NCR Delhi; this would in time be undertaken at various places across the country. He informed that this brand owner program would also be conducted in different zones of the country. He also announced the launch of a web Portal “Advantage” that would help label printer members of LMAI to offer their surplus left over raw materials and excess equipment to other members. Lastly he announced that LMAI will be hosting the LMAI awards on the sidelines of Labelexpo in November this year and will also be hosting the L9 Meet at that time. L9 is the global confederation of nine leading label associations in the world.

Barun Banerjee

Speaking first and setting the tone for the evening Barun Banerjee from Nestle, speaking from food perspective, expressed the imperative need for change and asserted that change is the only constant in an every evolving packaging scenario. He said that there are now three megatrends: 1. Visual & Tactile Changes 2.Green Initiatives and New Technology. 3. Digital Print and Personalization. He also spoke about the different decoration technologies that the brand owners are looking at to enhance the shelf appeal, sustainability and reducing the adverse impact on environment as also the need of combining digital capabilities in label production so as to enable variable data and personalization.

Rahul Bhargava from Sun Pharma gave information about requirements in respect to pharmaceutical packaging. He explained the need to adhere to statutory requirement and compliance through information on labels and packaging. Stressing that it is expected of all pharmaceutical and health care products to be labeled correctly for consumer safety, the responsibility is clearly with Brand Owner. Besides the aesthetics the label should have space for Product Name, Active/ Inactive ingredients, Strength, Directions for use, Warnings, Purpose & use of drug product, Drug facts etc. He also mentioned the need to ensure that the migration of solvents or plasticizers from inks on labels or adhesives into the plastic containers does not take place as it would impact the performance of the products. Lastly he informed about the font sizes that need to be adhered to while providing information on labels.

Kousik Saha

Kousik Saha of PepsiCo focused his presentation to beverage labeling and mentioned the four imperatives i.e.

•         FMOT (First Moment of Truth) which was about brand positioning, Label Printing and Decoration. He spoke of the decoration technologies needed to catch the consumer’s eye.
• Brand visibility/product positioning/consumer engagement/marketing campaign’;  Here he mentioned the impact of personalisation by adding variable and personalised images on labels.
• Regulations/Legal/ Claims.;  He spoke on amendment of PCR 2011 which deals with Font sizes of Net quantity, Best before, MRP, Consumer helpline to be 1.0mm and above as per principle display panel area. Guidelines of legal metrology
• Barcode/MRP, Date of Mfg / Expiry/Net content etc.;

He summed up by talking about performance parameters that were needed like GSM variation – Label orientation on gripper drum, release from vacuum drum leading to line stoppage, Elasticity – cut length variation, Eye-mark to eye-mark distance – cut length variation, Core damage – alignment of reel, loading on labeler, Static on label – Unwinding, labeler stoppage, etc.

Amiya Pradhan from Dabur spoke in reference to the labeling needs of the FMCG segment. He stated that a label projects the identity of a brand or the product, so it needs incorporate Branding Elements (Brand/ Sub Brand), Mnemonics (Major Ingredients), The Prepositions, Aesthetics, Visual/ Sensoria and Legal Metrology and other details. He extensively impressed upon the need to dress up the label so as to appeal to demanding consumers. He asserted that good “Branding & Packaging” can do magic in generating millions even from a freely available Item and that labeling and packaging can involve and engage target customers. He also spoke on the need for quicker response and turnaround times when developing something new.

Deepak Manchanda

Deepak Manchanda, packaging and design consultant, despite being extremely unwell that evening, made a huge effort to stand up and make a wonderful presentation titled “EMERGING NEEDS OF LABEL DESIGN; Delivering customer delight in an increasingly Regulatory Environment”. Stressing that design is the foundation of a good label or package as it  delivers Brand Communication, Design – Delight- Desire and  dwells on Disruption–Experience and Regulatory needs. The design establishes relationship between packaging and communication with the end user. He gave examples of designs that contributed to success of brands and products.

In the ensuing panel discussion moderated bay Harveer Sahni, all the speakers together with

lead sponsors represented by Pankaj Bhardwaj of Avery, Ajay Mehta of SMI and Prasenjit Das of DuPont, discussed besides other issues, sustainability. Rahul Bhargava mentioned that they were going thinner on grammages to reduce the impact of wastage on the environment, Pankaj Bhardwaj informed that Avery Dennison was pioneering in efforts to make recycling of release liners possible and Ajay Mehta stressed the need for interacting with brand owners to offer products that were sustainable. Barun Banerjee and Kousik Saha informed that the industry brand owner constituents were coming together to recollect plastic materials and recycle in their efforts to aid sustainability. He also appealed to suppliers to offer a single polymer substrate rather than multi substrate ones so that recycling becomes convenient. Harveer Sahni updated the audience about Any Graphics NOIDA and Mudrika Labels Mumbai having been announced the winners at World Label awards and also appealed to label printers to participate in forth coming LMAI awards.

Dinesh Mahajan, Prakash Labels and treasurer LMAI proposed a vote of thanks after Sunil Jindal made a presentation on the new LMAI portal announced by LMAI president.

The author had requested comments from those who attended this event, their responses are reproduced as here under;

Rajeev Chhatwal, Kwality Offset Printers; The presentations given by the brand owners were helpful in understanding needs of the Industry, this should help us all in planning our way ahead. Hope to see more such events in near future.

Honey Vazirani, Leap Digiprint Pvt. Ltd.: The event was well organized and well executed. I was also quite impressed with the companies and the delegates that LMAI managed to get as speakers. The last panel discussion should have also had a label printer on the panel because our industry is already stuck between giants (big customers and big suppliers!). Food was good as well! Overall comment: An informative and pleasant networking evening!

Ajay Mehta, SMI Coated Products: It was a very innovative and successful event which is well appreciated by us. This is the need of the hour and we have been suggesting that we to do this kind of programs where there can be an open interaction between brand owners and Label manufacturers. We look forward to many such events in future. 
Gaurav Nema, Pragati Global: I must say the event that happened on Friday was one of its kind and it made us learn about the aspects of packaging from the brand owner's perspective. Sustainable and re cycled packaging is need of the hour globally and this aspect was covered well. I however feel that a dedicated session should be organised for this aspect alone.I suggest that more such events should happen in different cities so that fraternity gets the maximum advantage.

Sandeep Zaveri, Total Prints: Printers should have more time to interact with brand owners, the idea is to improve our industry and stop the price war, reverse auction and many other aspects.

KPS Shetty, Sai Printers: It was an excellent event. We could listen to brand owners about their expectations.

Anuj Bhargav, Kumar Printers: Great initiative. More such interactions would truly help the industry.
Barun Banerjee: Thanks for creating that interactive space for user and label partners forum.

S. Mahesh, The Manipal Group: It was a great experience in terms to understand brand perception towards to label industry. It is motivating us to work towards their expectations.

Deepak Manchanda, Design and packaging consultant and speaker: "The event was a rare type of occasion where well recognised brand owner packaging representatives were available to mingle informally among competing label convertors as well as raw material suppliers. This is indeed a welcome initiative by LMAI to provide a platform for knowledge sharing and break down formal business processes into more innovative and networked ways of working together. It was impressive to see participants who had specially flown in from other cities to attend also."

Trilok Mittal, Wonderpac: The event was very fruitful for label manufacturers. Brand owners created awareness which today is the need for smart and security featured labels. We would like to attend such programmes as we become aware of the changing needs of brand owners.
Vivek Kapoor, Creative Labels: Great Work! 
Prasenjit Das, DuPont: It was one of the better events that I have attended after a long time. The idea of calling Brand Owners and listen to their views was very unique and informative. In most of the events we as a supplier listen to each other’s product benefits but in this event we could understand the views of the end users. This will definitely help us understand the VOCs much better and plan our strategies to meet those.
Mukesh Goel, Gopsons: It was indeed a great event and helped us in understanding the brand side as to what they need and their future expectations. It will definitely help us to realign our future strategy.

Amiya Pradhan, Dabur: It was a privilege meeting you people and sharing our views in front of the association. It was indeed a nice platform for the exchange of valuable feedback from both sides (the user and the converter industry). It really will strengthen the partnering between users and vendors towards sustainable innovation and value engineering.

Sanjeev Sondhi, Zircon Technologies: It helped us to prepare ourselves for future investments based on customer's requirement.
Pankaj Bhardwaj, Avery Dennison: The event was very useful in getting brand owners perspective and some very useful insights. I also liked the panel discussion bringing some very important points to the fore.

Written By Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi March 2018

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