In fact, Arlon India planned to organise the second ‘Converters Meet’ somewhere else in a new location this year, but the continuous demands from the converters who wished to keep hold of the last year’s venue had eventually brought the meet back to Goa again. “Hopefully we will be choosing a new venue next year,” said Bharat Damani, adding that it would help the annual event reach to a wider geography.

“Team work!”—this was what Bharat articulated while addressing a host of converters during the second ‘Converters Meet’ of Arlon India. “We can’t go solo. That’s what we all are doing now, but we want you to be a continuous part of our team and let’s find out how we can work together on varied projects,” Bharat urged the participants. He pointed out the fact that many of Arlon’s projects are now lying untapped by its partners. “Here the approach is to identify the opportunities that come our way in terms of better pricing and coordination. When we look at times, we need to look at the developments; we need to look at the progress, because the change is all we need; everything even in different industrial segments like automobile, beverage… get upgraded; and of course, Arlon India as well,” he explained.

Expansion going on

Tracing back to the 50 years of Arlon’s history and its successful presence in India since 2007, Bharat enunciated the company as a world leader in manufacturing cast vinyl materials for signage and vehicle fleet graphics. Headquartered in Southern California, Arlon boasts more than 250,000 sq ft of manufacturing and warehouse space with worldwide stocking locations in India, Australia, South America, UK, Netherlands, Germany, North America, among others. Arlon’s recent investment of more than US$ 25 million to create new capacity subsequently enables them to keep producing ‘game changing’ products for custom colour marking applications, cast vehicle wraps, monomeric and polymeric coated vinyl line for both indoor and outdoor applications.

Specialised in manufacturing materials for automotive sector, cut graphics and various range of flexible substrates, Arlon India is emerging as a ‘Partner of Choice’ in the country’s graphic art industry. “We would like to proceed on our partnership venture exploiting innovative range of products and services. Having been operating largely through the distribution market, this is just another part we would like to focus on in the coming years to expand our distribution network. Of course, our prime objective is ‘Reach and Availability’ all around,” asserted Bharat. In global arenas, Arlon is set to penetrate into the South American market in a bigger way by opening a subsidiary out of Brazil and the next target will be Africa.

New products and prospects

Addressing the gathered crowd of converters about new developments from Arlon, Bharat receptively announced, “We have been continuously improvising and increasing our product portfolio; probably two or three bubble-free films are adding up; and our focus is also for newer and better performing films for the automobile market, which is a growing segment all over the world and more or less the momentum is picking up steadily in India too, irrespective of being in a beginning phase.” Now that the Arlon paint protection films are highly demanded in the vehicle graphic arena, a new film that can revive itself from scratch is set to be launched in September. Bharat further stressed on the company’s newly unpacked wall graphic films, such as 4500 GS Satin Calendared Film and DPF 4600 LX, which is low cost printable premium gloss vehicle film that can be used as laminate on any surface. He proclaimed ‘2014’ as a landmark year of Arlon for the reasons that the company has garnered an overall business segregating into print media (45 percent), cut graphics (27 percent), commercial flex of all types (16 percent) and automotive (15 percent).

Arlon materials are versatile in terms of variations in qualities and prices. In context of price sensitiveness, Bharat claimed that the overall question is not about whether the material is of Rs 7 or Rs 170 per sq ft; it is about application; that’s why we continuously insist to ask our customers the application rather than the costs in order to get rid of misuse. To this connection, he urged everyone to visit www.arlon.com, an interactive official site of the company, as well as the others like www.graphicart.com and www.arlonautomotive.com for graphic art applications on walls, decals, vehicles and many others. Arlon is active on all social media sites, such as facebook, instagram, twitter, which according to Bharat is part of their agenda to reach to the masses.

Supportive notes

Among the other keynote speakers at the meet included Cap Jagmohan Mehta from IndusInd Bank who stressed on ‘quality maintenance’ in sign making or assembling a display item. Shedding a spotlight on the assured value and quality of Arlon products, he appealed to everyone to discard the chalta hai habit while choosing signage products. Another aspect he pointed out was safety measure one must be aware of while crafting a signage, which is of huge dimension. Venkat Adiraju, country manager, India, Roland DG (UK) Ltd referred to the company’s range of UV and textile printers, which in combination with Arlon medias could bring a big boost to business. “This is how partnership begins,” he suggested, appreciating Apsom Infotex for being a dedicated sales and service partner of Roland DG in India since 1995 to popularise Roland machines of varied configurations.

Vikas Premnath Tandon from DVS Enterprise delivered some useful hints on film applications, particularly guiding on accurate treatments of adhesives, which he explained in three broad categories: Permanent, Removable and Changeable or Repositionable. “Choosing the correct product with correct adhesive is the right move in sign making,” he advised, adding that Arlon’s products meet all such challenges in delivering best of outcomes, whether it could be in vehicle wraps, wall graphics on regular or irregular surfaces.

When the sessions came to the closing moment, Bharat conveyed his final massage expressing gratitude to every participant, soliciting everyone to go over the horizon of Arlon products and see the kind of opportunities they have. “Let’s start working harder, better and smarter” echoed his conclusive note.