It’s not only Indian B-schools and engineering colleges that are on the radar of international academic community. Packaging institutes, too, are attracting similar attention.
Consider this. Mumbai-based SIES School of Packaging recently got a grant of $125,000 (Rs 52 lakh), from the US-based Avery Dennison Foundation. The grant will be provided over a period of five-years for courses in packaging.
The collaboration will enable students in India — to enroll for the first time — for specialised courses in industry-based innovation and self-adhesive technology (like layout and labels on the bottles).
The courses to be delivered will include: Post graduate diploma in Graduate Technology in Packaging and Packaging Management Programme and the Post Graduate Diploma in Packaging Science and Technology.
“This is a pilot programme with SIES and this initiative will inspire innovation and foster talent in the packaging industry,” said Diane B Dixon, Chairwoman, Avery Dennison Foundation, US.
The Indian packaging market is estimated to be a little over Rs 60,000 crores and is growing at a rate of 15-20 per cent per annum, more than twice the global average. Not only is the industry growing rapidly but it is also creating lucrative jobs for those who find a career in it.
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This positive trend is also reflected in pharmaceutical and FMCG companies’ hiring numbers for packaging professionals. Last year, Tetra Pak hired 25 people for packaging and this year till date the company have already crossed this number in hiring on account of robust business growth.
“Packaging Industry offers multi-disciplinary careers and requires specialised knowledge of the materials, processing, design, quality, and environmental trends. In the current scenario, packaging companies both large and small are looking for Indian technical and non-technical professionals who can bring value to their products and incorporate higher levels of technology,” said Amit Mittal, Human Resource Director, South Asia Markets, Tetra Pak India.
The company also provides specialised training to its employees which focuses on the technical and functional requirements of a role.
Employees in the Commercial role are introduced to the whole product portfolio to build good understanding as what value the company can offer, whereas the employees in Technical Services are be taken through in-depth training on a specific packaging and distribution systems to enable them master the technology of that product type.
In many cases, like in Technical Services, the training is followed by stringent certification assessment. In other cases like Production, each person is trained on a particular operation for a long duration and his progress is mapped on a skill matrix; this is further followed by job rotation to create multi-skilling. This rigorous training in-turn also provides us with a line of internal trainers.
Not only business houses, but educational institutes offering courses in Packaging technology are also seeing increased enrollments for this niche segment that was once considered a career in isolation.
Deepak Khedkar, Joint Director and Branch Head Indian Institute of Packaging, Delhi, “We offer a two years Post Graduate Diploma in Packaging Technology. This year more than 650 people took the entrance exam of which 100 got selected, 50 each for Mumbai and Delhi. Last year, we had half the number of students for this course.”
Placements in the field are equally lucrative as the jobs. Big pharma, FMCG and IT peripheral companies like Procter and Gamble, HUL, Cadilla and Moser Baer.
Khedkar adds, “Last year, 28 MNCs had come for placements including cosmetic companies and electronic firms. All our students got placed and the average package was Rs4-5 lakhs with the highest offer being 25 lakh.”
Narayanan Ramaswamy, Executive Director, KPMG, commented, “The need for packaging is increasing with the growth of the industry. Processed foods that did not exist till some years back, require a specialised form of packaging and that is seeing great growth.”