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For
more than a decade, NPES has enjoyed a relationship with the Indian
printing and publishing industry that has grown steadily stronger
and more valuable.
Today we are proud of our links with the leading printers and print
organizations in this vitally important land. In that spirit, we
are delighted to extend congratulations to the Delhi Printers' Association
as it observes its 50th anniversary.
NPES members-who number more than 400-are among the world's leading
sources of innovation for printing, publishing and converting specialists.
U.S. companies set the pace in developing new technologies, in solving
customer problems, and in extending the benefit of modern, high-productivity
printing throughout the world. This has been true as long as NPES
has been in existence, and we celebrated our 70th anniversary in
2003.
A key role of NPES has always been to help our members understand
and serve global markets. To achieve this, we have sought out cooperative
relationships with organizations around the world that share our
interest in free exchange of information and elimination of artificial
barriers to trade.
The Indian market has never been more central to our mission than
it is today.
A number of profoundly important basic qualities should work to
strengthen trading relationships between the United States and India.
For example, India has a tradition of democracy and respect for
free expression which is not shared everywhere in the world.
Print, of course, goes hand in hand with that freedom.
Moreover, many world regions are struggling today to develop the
most fundamental framework for trade, including such concepts as
private ownership of companies, legally recognized contracts, reliable
accounting and realistic currency and credit laws. All of these
basics have been well established in India for many years.
India also enjoys high literacy rates and has a tradition of respecting
education...two additional factors contributing to a favorable climate
for printing and publishing.
Surely another such factor, and possibly the most important, is
the openness of Indian organizations like the Delhi Printers' Association
to exchanges of information and ideas with colleagues around the
world.
In our efforts to strengthen our trading relationship with India,
we have conducted reciprocal visits to trade shows and conferences,
staged exhibits at major expositions, exchanged data about our markets,
and organized trade missions that have given American and Indian
executives opportunities to talk and get to know each other.
This mutual knowledge gathering is always vital to good trading
relationships. However, in our industry, in our era, it is even
more important.
That's because printers all over the world are facing more competitive
and technological pressure today than ever before. Any region in
which print is modernizing rapidly, such as India, must develop
new strategies and tools just as rapidly to help printers survive
and prosper.
For printers in the United States, the last decade has been a time
of consolidation. The number of printing companies in the U.S. has
declined significantly, even though the industry remains very large
and has recently begun to see annual growth again after several
difficult years.
At the same time, print buyers are demanding more from their suppliers.
They're seeking to meet more of their needs with fewer vendors,
and expecting a higher level of service from the vendors they retain.
To maintain and expand their business, printers will have to move
well beyond the function of applying ink to paper. In the United
States printers increasingly offer such capabilities as Internet
and web services, digital asset management, mailing and fulfillment,
and variable-content digital printing.
Technology has greatly helped printers to broaden their business
horizons. In particular, the pervasive implementation of all-digital
workflows enables print to compete with other media and to combine
with them into comprehensive communications solutions.
Today digital technologies are becoming the norm in every production
process from image acquisition and design to mailing and fulfillment.
This revolution has already swept the American printing industry
and regions like India will soon be proceeding rapidly down the
same road.
Another consequence of the digital transition has been to make it
easy, for the first time, for print jobs to move quickly around
the world. We now have standards and file formats that allow jobs
to be designed in one nation, prepared for printing somewhere else,
and printed in several other locations all over the globe. Print
is becoming a truly all-encompassing medium and a truly international
business.
For all of these reasons, cooperation and collaboration among nations
is more important than ever before.
That is why we at NPES value our relationship with the Delhi Printers'
Association, and with the Indian printing, publishing and converting
industry. A half century of accomplishment is something of which
to be proud, and we congratulate you once again.
Other
Articles:
Delhi
Printers Association - in retrospect
Stora Enso
- looking to the future
Book Publishing
in India Today
Digital
- The New Business of Printing
A Strong
Friendship - A Promising Future
CtP Revolution
in India
Book Binding
Techniques
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