Priyata Raghavan and her entrepreneurial success at Sai Packaging

       Priyata Raghavan 

The author has firmly believed that “Women are largely loyal, committed and resilient in business”. They achieve success in their endeavors despite being multi-taskers. We all know being a home maker is a gigantic task; looking after household chores, managing children, their education, their activities, arranging wardrobes for self and family. After all this, running one of the largest packaging companies in the country is nothing short of a miracle! Priyata Raghavan, is one such woman who is like a role model for young aspiring women leaders riding success with her hard work. She is the younger daughter of Vijay Raghavan, the founder of Sai Packaging Company and heads the overall operations of the company as deputy CEO.

Vijay Raghavan came from a modest background having witnessed financial heights and lows in his childhood. Despite difficulties he completed his education through college and then went on to achieve an MBA. Middle aged, in his late 40s, in 1993 he decided to set up his maiden venture Sai Security Printers with meagre capital that he could arrange. With sheer hard work he established his credibility and adopted good business practices and ethical values that became the way forward for the business and for his family to follow. His wife was a big support, with a masters in English literature she pursued job as a teacher. In the beginning of a new millennium, the business felt the need of more family members and at this time she quit her job to join as administrator, a designation she has held for the past 20 years. 

Vijay Raghavan carried on his security printing business, printing lottery tickets for various state Governments. In 1996 they invested in an imported, one of the early 13-inch 12 color narrow web flexo press for printing scratch coupons. Due to a sudden ban on lottery by the government, they were left evaluating what to do next. Vijay Raghavan initiated his journey into packaging by setting up Sai Packaging Company and putting the swanky new press to use instead, for Labels, Beverages and liquor. That was how they started working in Labels.

Vijay Raghavan is blessed with two daughters and being a proponent of women empowerment, encouraged his daughters to achieve the best in education. His elder daughter is a maths graduate from South Campus Delhi, and currently heads the Tutor Quality Department at CueLearn India, an e-learning startup focused on math education globally.  She is Carnegie Mellon University Dean's Scholar with a master’s in information systems management. His younger daughter Priyata who now heads the North India operations of Sai Packaging as deputy CEO since 2005, attended Holy Child School New Delhi and Sri Venkateswara College in South Campus, New DELHI. She did her MBA from IIM Lucknow and has been a gold medalist through all these institutions. She specialized in Marketing and Finance.

Priyata joined ITC Limited in 2003 as a Management Trainee in Sales and Marketing. She considers her time at ITC crucial for her business future, working on brands like Ashirwaad and Sunfeast that became household names. She gained insights into sales and distribution channels, travelling extensively across the country. She joined Sai Packaging right after spending a few years at ITC Limited. This was at a time when the business was going through a transformation from the lottery business into a world of labels and packaging. It was an important trajectory dependent on succession. She has spent over 20 years at the helm of SAI, wearing many hats like heading Sales, Operations, Finance etc. As with every family-run enterprise, her duties/task far outnumber any designation. After initially starting out in finance, then sales and operations, she worked her way to leading Profit Centers for the overall business as well as heading Business Development, Finance and Corporate Affairs for the Company. 

Reminiscing her early days at SAI, she says, “Memories of selling packaging those days, are very memorable, albeit for very different reasons. I was handed a few of the challenging customers to prove my mettle. I cannot name them here of course, but I can say that my learnings from selling to these difficult customers was far higher than the business earnings from them. I still carry those early lessons with me!”. As for the challenges she faced as a woman, she goes on to add, “Printing as such, especially the convertor business has few women and there is always resistance both within and without for a woman on the shop floor and as a leader. I overcame initial resistance with hard work, resilience, passion and delivery to be trusted by all stakeholders as an inclusive leader. “Priyata firmly believes that there are advantages of being a female leader. Women bring in the innate ability to multitask and establish an emotional connect. Their higher social quotient and emotional quotient helps build tangible and solid relationships amongst all levels of the team and stakeholders. This ability helps the teams to go above and beyond, and win trust with suppliers, customers and investors. She asserts that she has always tried to look at the end consumer requirements so as to understand the packaging needs of brands and translate that back to her teams within the company. This helped her in winning business. Sai, until she joined, was a men-only organisation 20 years ago, but contrary to that, it now employs women at various positions in the company. Sai has evolved to recognise the merit and talent in women.

Priyata's father, Vijay Raghavan, inspired her with his business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. He mentored her throughout her career, alongside other professionals in both family and business, which contributed to her growth. She avidly reads biographies and management books to gather insights and experiences. She has, over the years, been the recipient of many awards.

·       Business leader of the Year 2023, Women in Print by Printweek

·       Tycoons of Faridabad by the Jagran Group in 2019

·       Appreciation Award for Women Empowerment by FICCI 2019

·       Young Entrepreneur Recognition by DLF Industries 2020

Despite her entrepreneurial responsibilities, she has successfully raised two children. Advait, her 13-year-old son excels in football, academics, and music. Zoya, her 10-year-old daughter is an outstanding student and a dedicated Kathak dancer, performing across India and winning numerous awards.

Vijay Raghavan continues to guide and mentor Sai Packaging as Chairman. Arvind Sekhar -his elder son in law, husband of Priyata’s elder sister, is the CEO of the company looking after National Customers & Corporate Account Relationships, Strategic R&D Initiatives, and Investor Relationships. Arvind is master’s in chemical engineering, and has worked with International Papers and Ariba, an American software and information technology services company located in Palo Alto, California now acquired by German software maker SAP. He was in the US for 13 years, before he came back to India to join the company. 

Sai packaging is multilocation company serving FMCG brands needing a pan-India vender presence. Sai is the preferred partner for them with production facilities in Faridabad NCR and Bengaluru in the south of India. Their product range includes Labels, Cartons, Leaflets, Inserts and Security printing instruments. 

With 14 offset and flexo production lines they work out of the shop floor area admeasuring 270,000 square feet employing a 700 plus workforce at two locations. They invested in digital printing capabilities some years back and found digital solutions extremely useful in giving options with speed to the world of packaging. Priyata believes that hybrid technologies that toggle both conventional and digital technologies, have great scope for growth, in the years to come, however still, the industry needs to overcome the pricing challenge for digital.

Finally, regarding her vision for future, she says, “We want to consolidate that position to grow much faster in the years to come. We want to be known for our initiatives in Creativity, Trust, and Sustainability across the board.

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi March 2025

Labels-visible part of Printpack 2025, a pictorial walk through!

The Indian Printing Packaging and Allied Machinery Manufacturers’ Association (IPAMA) was established in1988, organized the 16th edition of their flagship show Printpack India at The India Expo Center in Greater Noida UP from the 1^st to 5^th February 2025. The exhibition started as an annual event in 1999 and became a biennial show from 2005 onwards. Until 2011 the show was held at New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan and later in 2013 it was moved to India Expo Center, Greater Noida. The author nostalgically reminisces having been an exhibitor in 1999. The show that basically caters to graphic arts machinery and related products, initially was looked upon as a commercial and offset printing equipment show, but in recent times has evolved as an event showcasing equipment, tooling, materials, consumables, software to all segments of diverse printing, packaging and converting industry. The show has grown in size and presentations to print at large and is now considered as one of the largest in the world.

Author with sons

Label is an important miniscule portion of the packaging industry, being the face of any product, the needs of their target audience are focused, so they have separate specialty shows around the world. Printpack for the last couple of editions has been attracting some suppliers to the label industry, it was surprising to see a smart display in large stands in dedicated two halls and the spill over into other halls as well. This evidently indicates the vibrant increase of consumerism in the country which has resulted in robust growth in demand for packaging. The author has endeavoured to share his pictorial walk through the show concentrating on the label and packaging industry.

 

With Ramesh Kejriwal Parksons Packaging

Sanjeev of Zircon

Alan and Manish  

With T P Jain, Monotech

Amit and Ashima Ahuja of Multitec

Pawandeep Sahni at Omet stand with customer

With Appadurai at HP stand

With Jatinder Singh CEO Kurz

Rishab Kohli TPH with his Digital Press

with Rahul at E+L

Amit Sheth of Pulisi

Amonkar at GEW stand

With Ajay Agarwal Syndicate labels

Jatinder and Aryaman Julka Alliance

with Ranesh, Harish of Sai comcodes and Alan(Nilpeter)

Shivnandan of Webtech

Amit Taneja of Parksons and team

with Srinivas Goud of Flint

Deepanshu Goel of Creative Graphics

with Nitin Garg of NBG

Anuj and Ishwar of GJ Papers

Garg of Multi Hitech

Amitabh Luthra of Printers Supply Co.

Santosh Neha Label

Arun Gandhi CGSP

Omet Team

Anil Arora and Prateek

with Abhay Datta UV Graphic Tech.

Wrapping up the visit at The Knowledge Bar by Abhay Datta in his UV Graphics stand

Compiled by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi February 2025

NBG’s Nitin attributes success to visionary parents

Nitin Garg

Nitin Garg aged 43 years as on 2024, is the Managing Director of Faridabad head quartered NBG PRINTOGRAPHIC MACHINERY CO. (P) LTD. manufacturing narrow web flexo label presses. Nitin is an engineering graduate,  alumnus of Purdue University West Lafayette USA. Earlier he did his schooling from ApeeJay School Faridabad and later passed out of  New Delhi’s Delhi Public School, R K Puram in 2000. After acquiring his engineering degree from Purdue, he returned home to join their family business that was headed by his mother under guidance of his father Dr. S K Garg who was an academician, a doctorate in statistics working as a professor and principal of a government aided college.

Dr. S K Garg

Nitin’s mother, while being a homemaker, established business under guidance from her husband Dr. Garg, who as a professor had time to guide her because of the limited hours he had to spend in service. Their maiden venture National Engineering Works was set up to produce components, from 1980 to 1989 they were making parts for printing machines for companies like Raghubeer machinery, Jai Mahabeer, Bandhu, The Printers House etc. In 1990 they set up NBG, started to produce web offset presses and that carried on until 2016. Dr. Garg named the company NBG after his children, son Nitin and Bharti Garg. In 2008 Dr. S K Garg retired and joined business full-time as managing Director. While his father was actively heading the company looking after admin and finance, Nitin took care of marketing, product development, quality control and sales along with his sister Bharti who also joined the company. Nitin had joined NBG in 2003, after training within the company for a year, he was entrusted with the responsibility of establishing exports along with looking after quality control. He found success in markets like CIS, Africa, South America etc. Side by side he also set up the trading business and became agents for the world-renowned Swiss company Wifag, manufacturing highspeed offset printing machines for newspapers.

In 2008 NBG installed their first CNC machine to trigger development and upgrade the quality of their equipment. This followed up with more such machines. In 2015 they installed high precision inspection machine for upgrading quality of their mainframes from Zeus Germany. In an endeavour to hone his management skills, Nitin studied to get an executive MBA degree from UCLA in 2014. 

Bharti Garg Agarwal

His younger sister Bharti who had joined NBG, is married and lives in Faridabad. Her husband has a business of producing components for batteries. Until 2018 she was working with father and later started to work with Nitin who was heading the company. Bharti started looking after marketing and sales.

Nitin with Anuj Bhargav

Their primary customer base was newspaper companies and right from the time he joined business, Nitin had observed that with the advent of electronic media, the decline of newspapers was happening, so there was a need to diversify. He spent the next couple of years researching, talking to industry friends and associates on what could be the next project to indulge in, and the answer was packaging. Family friend Ravinder Gupta owner of P R Packaging mentored Nitin to take up packaging as his focus and initially NBG started trading in package converting machinery from China, but that business catered to sheetfed process while they had experience and expertise in roll or web converting. So, with advice coming from friends who had knowledge of the infrastructure they had, it became clear that label business is what suited them best. Nitin spent time studying the narrow web flexographic label printing and converting market. Leafing through market reports and industrial data, he came to the conclusion that there is substantial growth in flexo label market. It is a segment that will prevail for a long time. The product size of the equipment suited them. In 2016 they produced their first press with double servo, electronic line shaft and auto registration. Since they were not aware of the application part, the product did not do too well, and for this reason they sold its parts in pieces but did not leave hope of developing the right product. The brighter part and directional support came to Nitin from Anuj Bhargav of Kumar labels, who not only advised him on building the right press but also bought it later and found it successful. Nitin is indebted to Anuj for having played a key role in developing the machine. In the flexo press segment this became a take off point for NBG. The very first narrow web label press by NBG was sold to Galaxy labels NOIDA. The press was extensively rested for three months at their own factory, even running production jobs, as they wanted to be sure of their equipment’s performance. They initiated their exports with a press sold to a customer in Tanzania, who has become a repeat customer and then they have sold to customers in Portugal and UAE. Since they were trading in equipment for paper bags, bowls, buckets for food and cups, they could expand into wide web flexo as well, selling to the same customer base. The first customer in this wide web flexo category was DJS printers in Manesar.

Looking back Nitin Garg says while we were confident of our engineering capabilities, yet for building a press, you need to have good know how including the application part and that is where Anuj Bhargav had been a big support with his experience and knowledge, they could achieve creating a good piece of equipment. Kumar labels has purchased and installed two presses from NBG and the third is getting ready to be installed soon. Nitin’s vision is to manufacture equipment that is technically upgraded and in sync with latest technologies, a combination press on their shop floor is ready for delivery. They are also planning a sleeve press that is a mix of flexo and roto gravure. It is a matter of pride for NBG that the customers who have bought their machines have been previously running Gallus machines. In short time from scratch to now they have sold 8 narrow web flexo machines in India besides their offset presses and wide web flexo presses that they produce up to 1.8 meters wide and 1.6-meter repeat for the corrugated bord industry.

Taruna Garg

In 2004 Nitin married Taruna who had done her engineering from Mumbai university followed by One-Year Management Programme for Senior Executives from INSEAD in 2015. For almost 20 years she worked as an IT professional in corporates. While she was doing fairly well in her last job as Assistant Director in Fidelity International at Gurgaon, Nitin who was growing and expanding both in manufacturing and trading, was short of hands. At that stage family support is important for  growth. She joined NBG as COO in 2024.

Nitin’s father Dr. S K Garg unfortunately got infected during covid and passed away in 2023. His mother, at age 67 , has somewhat withdrawn but still comes to the office for a few hours every day but her role remains advisory.

Since Faridabad has been an engineering hub with a big presence for support to the printing industry, for NBG it became a convenient journey to flourish in. Nitin agrees that that most of the successful brands of Indian flexo presses that have been developed, come from Faridabad, the neighboring industrial suburb of New Delhi. Faridabad is a part of NCR Delhi and a major industrial hub of the state of Haryana. Faridabad already has an infrastructure to cater to the printing industry at large. He says there is no doubt that companies like The Printers House (TPH), Sud & Warren and the likes thereof have been instrumental  for this city to become the printing machinery hub. He says, “I am a big admirer of late Manmohan Kohli of TPH, who not only scaled up businesses, contributed hugely to the growth but was the one who put in systems in place ahead of time”.

NBG’s main assembly plant at IMT Faridabad is on a plot admeasuring 4000 square meters and another parts manufacturing facility of 3000 square meters making a total shop floor area of about 70,000 square feet. Their sales office is in New Delhi’s Connaught Place. They have a total workforce of 150 employees. In terms of infrastructure, Nitin asserts that they are confident of competing with European products as they have the know-how and keep abreast of the latest technologies around the world and can adopt them in their machines. They deliver machines in four months from confirmation of a firm order. The biggest achievement he feels is that 80% of business comes from existing customers, which confirms consistency. NBG has sold 60 presses in the narrow and wide web flexo press category. As regards service, NBG already has a big setup that also caters to their trading activity in international printing and converting equipment. As for the future, they plan to mark their presence in all segments of flexo presses; narrow-web, mid-web and wide-web. As for digital, Nitin says he does not want to depend on anyone, NBG will develop and own digital printing press. They are in the process of aligning with European design specialists for printing equipment to produce the best that is needed globally. Nitin expresses that digital will grow as it is convenience that makes any industry grow, if you see over the years the industry has transformed from letterpress to offset to gravure to flexo and now digital has already impacted the commercial print market.

He concludes, “Whatever is convenient will be the future” He further adds “In 5 years, we don’t know where we will reach but one thing is certain we will try and produce the best; we have always invested back in the company in infrastructure, in know-how and people. It is a legacy of my father, and we will continue to do that.”

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi January 2025