We sat face to face with Suhas Kulkarni, Business Manager India - Packaging Segment, Kodak India and talked about the company’s new products, JVs and the future of things to come.

Could you give an overview of the packaging activities of Kodak?
Kodak packaging solutions encompasses solutions right from the design to the launch of the entire gamut of printing and packaging industry, be it offset carton printing, flexible packaging, flexographic printing or tags and label segments. Our focus is to have the best value proposition for all these segments. We have built a good range of products for these segments and now we are strengthening our sales and service teams to make sure we are able to provide best service before and after point of sale to our customers.

Which would you say is Kodak's strongest segment today?
We are seeing strongest growth in the offset carton printing industry. There is a movement towards digital processing from analog processing in this segment. The carton printing segments is growing manifolds. We also see a lot of growth happening in the tag and label industry because a lot of people are consolidating their businesses in the present economic scenario and we play a very important role in helping them achieve this. These are the two strong segments for Kodak today.

What do you think about the current market sentiment?
Currently people are not going ahead with many capital intensive expenditures. Especially when it comes to consolidating their businesses and understating how they can have a better pay off on their current investments. It is here that we come in as pre press solution providers and help our customers to overcome these inhibitions. We have faced some effects of the slowdown especially after Drupa. But we work very closely with these customers to make sure they make the right decisions and not be influenced by popular sentiment.

Tell us about the Kodak JV with Nupro?
Nupro is mainly a solvent manufacturing company, making eco friendly solvents required for flexographic plate making processes. They are also known for their distillation units which is used for recycling of these solvents. With the Nupro deal, we have encompassed their products with Kodak's Packaging Solutions. We foresee that we will be able to provide complete solutions especially for the flexographic plate making industry. So now we look forward to supplying eco friendly solvents to our customers and also recycling facilities for this solvent.

Which new products will we see as a result of this JV?
As of now Nupro doesn't have any business in the Asia Pacific region, they are mostly active in America. So we are looking at building up a business base where we can introduce them to the Asia Pacific market. We are looking to sell the solvents and the distillation units here too. We believe the products should appear in the Asian markets by mid 2009.

And what are the new products from Kodak that we should be expecting soon?
The latest from Kodak is the Flexcel Nx, which we displayed at Drupa 2008. We have had a few trials for this system as well and the installations will be happening later this year. We have one installation at Wongkeek International, Bangkok. This company also has a Nilpeter flexographic press.

Any immediate expansion plans of Kodak?
There are a lot of business consolidation plans happening within the graphic communication group, which we will talk about shortly.


<suhas.kulkarni@kodak.com>