中文Delivering the keynote address at the 13th Specialty Films & Flexible Packaging Global Summit in Mumbai, Navanit Narayan, whole-time director and CEO of Haldia Petrochemicals, offered a clear thesis: the packaging industry is approaching a point where conventional measures of growth and scale will no longer be enough. The next decade, he argued, will belong not to the biggest producers but to those who build resilient, circular and intelligent value chains capable of absorbing disruption.
Narayan began by reframing what packaging now is. “Today, it influences consumer experience, buying behavior, product safety, brand equity, resource efficiency and sustainability,” he said. “It has become an integral part of modern economies and global supply chains.” That expanded role means packaging decisions now sit at the intersection of petrochemicals, manufacturing, retail, food security, healthcare and international trade – which is precisely why supply-chain resilience has become, in his words, a critical competitive differentiator.
The first of his three forces is resilience. Recent geopolitical tensions, energy disruptions, logistics bottlenecks and economic uncertainty have exposed the vulnerability of global supply chains, turning what was once an operational concern into a strategic imperative. For India specifically, Narayan sees the challenge as an opportunity: the country has the scale, entrepreneurial capability and domestic demand to strengthen its position in global packaging markets. But he was firm that the next decade “will belong to those who build stronger, smarter and more reliable value chains capable of adapting to disruption,” not simply to those producing larger volumes of material.
The second force is circularity. The debate, Narayan observed, has moved beyond whether sustainability matters to how quickly the industry can scale sustainable solutions while remaining economically competitive. He called for a shift away from the linear “produce, use and dispose” model toward systems where materials retain their value and stay in productive use longer. That requires action across the value chain – designing for recyclability, increasing recycled-content use, and strengthening collection and recovery infrastructure. “Collection and recovery infrastructure still remain major challenges in our country,” he noted, arguing that progress depends on closer collaboration between material manufacturers, converters, brand owners and recyclers, plus investment in advanced recycling and mono-material solutions.
The third pillar is intelligence. “The next revolution in packaging will not be driven solely by material science,” Narayan said. “It will be driven by the ability to harness data and convert it into better decisions.” AI, advanced analytics, automation and digital technologies can improve demand forecasting, production planning, inventory optimisation, quality control and supply-chain visibility, helping companies respond faster while improving both cost competitiveness and sustainability performance.
Narayan closed on a note of responsibility. India already has many of the ingredients required to become a global packaging powerhouse – expanding consumption, growing e-commerce, supportive policies and a wide entrepreneurial ecosystem. The challenge now is collaboration. “Our responsibility extends beyond producing packaging materials or manufacturing packaging products,” he concluded. “It is to build an ecosystem that is resilient enough to withstand disruption, circular enough to preserve resources and intelligent enough to continue creating greater value.” For an industry used to measuring success in tonnes, it was a pointed redefinition of what winning looks like.
Source: The Packman – “The next decade of packaging will demand more than scale” by Mahan Hazarika (4 September 2026).
Narayan’s reframing of packaging as an ecosystem responsibility rather than a tonnes-produced metric is the challenge the whole industry now faces, and for Indian converters the call to collaborate across material makers, converters, brand owners and recyclers is the practical path from linear waste to circular value.
Narayan’s reframing of packaging as an ecosystem responsibility rather than a tonnes-produced metric is the challenge the whole industry now faces, and for Indian converters the call to collaborate across material makers, converters, brand owners and recyclers is the practical path from linear waste to circular value. The scale argument is seductive but incomplete: India has the domestic demand and entrepreneurial base to produce more, yet without resilient and intelligent value chains that material advantage erodes the moment a disruption hits. The keynote’s lasting contribution is to put intelligence – harnessing data for better decisions – on equal footing with material science, reminding an industry that has long measured success in volume that the next decade will reward those who build systems, not just capacity.
The keynote’s lasting message is that volume without resilience is fragile, and the Indian packaging sector’s next decade will be defined by the systems it builds, not the tonnes it ships.
Resilience, circularity and intelligence are not separate programmes but one connected agenda, and Narayan’s keynote rightly refuses to let any single one substitute for the others. An Indian packaging sector that builds all three will convert its undeniable scale into durable advantage, while one that chases volume alone will remain exposed to the next disruption the decade inevitably brings.
