On the 22nd of November 2018
at the LMAI Avery Dennison Awards night, held on the side lines of Labelexpo
India, the winner announced in digital printing category-Wine and Spirits
was Trigon Digipack Pvt Ltd, Mumbai. Just over a
week later, on the 29th of November 2018, Trigon was declared the Printweek India
“Digital Printer of the year”. This was Trigon’s fourth award; the first two were Printweek
“Pre-press Company of the year” awards won in 2015 and 2017. It is an
incredible performance by a company promoted by first generation entrepreneurs
just 10 years ago, with no previous experience in running a manufacturing
company. They moved into roll form digital printing of labels merely 3
years ago. They have invested in a digital printing press at a time when we are
witnessing the evolutionary shift of label production in India from
conventional processes to digital. Digital printing is a segment of label
industry that leading label manufacturing companies have been extremely
hesitant to invest in, due to high cost of equipment and consumables.
Anil Namugade the co-founder, along
with partner Milind Deshpande, have promoted Trigon Digital and successfully led it
on its digital label journey.
After graduating in Economics from
Mumbai University Anil Namugade, also a Printing Technologist from the
Government Institute of Printing Technology, took up jobs as a scanner operator
from 1994 to 1997 in few of the leading pre-press houses in
Mumbai. Here he acquired immense knowledge in repro-colour separation and
prepress. In 1998 he joined Heidelberg as a software specialist and continued
to work there until 2003. Anil joined Kodak as packaging and proofing
specialist in 2003. It was a purely technical job where he developed his
passion for proofing, learnt the nuances of colour management and the
imperative need of good prepress for excellence in final
print. During his stint with Kodak he was also handling technical and
sales support which helped him gain experience in selling as well.
Unfortunately, by 2007 Kodak was seeing a decline in business and as
restructuring process was being put in place, he had to exit Kodak.
Suddenly that one day he found himself jobless, away from a stable job in an
MNC(Multi National Company). He firmly believed in and followed a simple mantra
of success and excellence; “Look at problem as an opportunity and learn to grow
and excel”. Drawing inspiration from this mantra, he along
with partner Milind Deshpande who is also a printing technologist,
set up their maiden start-up venture Trigon Digital Solutions.
From past experience and knowledge he had
acquired from working in the previous jobs, Anil knew that customers needing
packaging, wanted to see how their product would look, before they opted
for actual printing and production. He saw the opportunity in
this need, so Trigon was set up as a proofing and mock-up
producing company. His knowledge of prepress and colour management helped
him to achieve his goal. Earlier it used to be the creative agencies that
visualised and created a format for packaging, Trigon creating an actual marketable mock up
for the companies was a new and welcome development for brand owner
companies. The first equipment they invested in was Kodak Approval NX
that printed in sheet format and started to take up proofing and mock-up
creation for customers. Finding success in their endeavors he soon realised
that being closer to the customer is an imperative. In 2010 Trigon opened a facility in Bangalore and
followed it up by setting up a unit in Delhi in 2012. In 2015 they went
international by setting shop in Dubai and later an office in Singapore. All
the units except the office in Singapore are equipped with Kodak Approval NX.
In 2015 they saw the opportunity in customers
demanding label mock-ups in roll form, so in their Mumbai
facility they invested in an Epson Surepress to produce samples including Flexibles,
Laminates and Labels by digital printing in roll form. Moreover, the
production on Kodak was turning out to be expensive and limited to sheet
format. Soon their customers upgraded from demanding just mock-ups to
ordering short runs for their specialised marketing needs. They also
started to see business emanating from the shrink sleeve segment as also a
growing demand for other roll form variants. The slow speed of Surepress
could not cater to the demand they were getting and also there was a limitation
that it could not produce shrink sleeves. At this time in
2017 Trigon decided to take a major step of
investing in an HP Indigo 6000 digital press and enhance their capability to produce a
larger range of products. A year down the line in 2018 Trigon yet again upgraded their HP Indigo 6000 to HP Indigo 6900 which had enhanced features. On this HP 6900 they could do
inline primer coating saving them the time and valuable space, print metallic
inks and florescent inks. With a widened customer base and enhanced
capabilities they now cater to applications in FMCG, Liquor, Personalised
labels, Variable Data labels, QR codes and a lot more. They now produce and
sell a range besides labels, offering flexible packaging, complex
laminates, lamitubes and shrink sleeves. Anil Namugade firmly believes
that digital is the future of printing and innovative packaging. Dwelling on
the general apprehension of label printers regarding ROI (Return on Investment),
he feels that it becomes better from an expanded vision of providing
specialised services to the customer. These services that Trigon offers include
brand management, database management including validation, preparing
the mock-ups for test marketing before indulging extensively,
offering creativity to customers for their evaluation and aiding decision
making, personalisation or customisation and incorporating variable information
on each label or package at short notice. Their experience in pre-press
has helped them greatly and he believes that by adding full post press setup Trigon has become a one stop shop for the
needs of brand owners. The additional cost of digitally
converted products needs to spell value for customers to justify the
cost. Anil asserts that the vision for success of flexo graphic
printing and Digital printing should be looked at separately and not as a
comparison.
Trigon Digipack plans to
remain focused in digital Printing. With already a facility in Dubai and
an office in Singapore they
are a global entity and they will be expanding their global reach by
establishing a setup in U.K. in 2019-2020 as they already have customers in 18
countries including UK and Europe. They have endeavored to remain logistically
close to customers to be able to provide service at their doorstep.
Surprisingly due to their business model of being linked to packaging
development, marketing and brand management, their revenues do not come from
purchase budgets of customers but come from their marketing budgets. Trigon making optimum use of space operates
out of around 1800 square feet shop floor area of all facilities put
together. Headquartered in Andheri East, Mumbai they have a workforce of
102 persons. At Trigon every new creation is a challenge but
developing it is not. Anil proudly says innovation, technology, extensive
knowledge of prepress, and having “People with Passion” in their team has
always been a winning force for Trigon. They are committed to improve upon what the
customer wants or brings to them for creation of a label or package that will
spell success for their products and brand.
Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi December 2018
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