Seminar on measures to combat the challenge of counterfeits
Conceptualized by Inventicon Business Intelligence and sponsored by Uniqo Label in association with Stratint Technologies and Prooftag, the Anti-Counterfeiting and Brand Protection Summit 2022 was held at Vacation Inn hotel in Mumbai this January. During the Tiptop, a discussion was held on measures to be taken to combat challenges that brands face from counterfeiters across industries.
Counterfeiting: A global challenge
The Summit kick-started with an opening address by the chairperson of the briefing, Pramod Krishna, managing director full general, Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC). Krishna, in his accost, talked about the electric current counterfeiting scenario and how counterfeits are a serious threat to businesses. He said, "Counterfeiting has infiltrated almost every industry, with Cathay beingness the major contributor. Globally, Asia and Eastern asia are the regions where counterfeiting is high and is posing a giant care for to well-established brands around the world. The International Trademark Association and International Sleeping accommodation of Commerce jointly find that counterfeited goods all over the world account to $2 trillion. This is expected to rise to $ii.5 trillion in 2022. Other disturbing figures from the Frontline Economics state that iv.2 trillion jobs were lost in the last 2 decades due to counterfeiting activities, across the globe."
Krishna further observed that People's republic of china and India are leading in counterfeited medicines. Talking on the positive actions taken, he stated, "The government of Kingdom of cambodia has closed threescore illegal pharma companies handling counterfeited products. Deportment through legal and penal ways are also being carried out in the zones where the counterfeiting ratios are huge, like in India."
He and so turned his focus on alcoholic beverages and called it the virtually affected category amid counterfeited products, followed past pharmaceuticals and footwear.
Counterfeiting in India
Shakil Ahmed, head – Brand Protection, Diageo Republic of india, spoke about the effects of counterfeiting on alcoholic beverages in India and factors leading to the menace. He observed, "Counterfeiting is a means to develop and build easy money through the illegal way. From the last iii decades, counterfeiting has increased to 10000%, which is a very alarming rate and a serious threat to brands. Alcoholic beverages in Bharat are the hardest striking. Around 16% of the products in this category are counterfeited. Ane of the factors leading to such a huge figure is that 30% of the population in India betwixt the age grouping of 15 and 29 years are either unemployed or non educated. This creates a base for all illegal activities to thrive. We need to create more jobs and utilize this unemployed population. Around v.4 1000000 people lost their jobs in Bharat in the concluding decade due to counterfeiting activities."
Challenges
Talking about the challenges with Packaging South asia, Ahmed said, "The alcoholic beverages segment is one of the highly regulated markets in India. Manufacturers of these products cannot change their labels frequently and if one has the courage to do then, the manufacturer has to undergo a very complex process with the regulatory regime. This makes information technology easier for counterfeiters to imitate the products. There is a need to collaborate and fight against this new cancer of counterfeiting through three important measures: identification of such activities, innovative authentication systems on products like AI or smart apps which tin can browse and tell whether the product is 18-carat or non, and taking actions against such activities with collaborations and collective attempt."
Overcoming counterfeits
Engineering and rail & trace: Innovative solutions for production packaging backed by multi-pronged strategy for labelling and ensuring security from the counterfeiters is a trend today. Clement Kaiser, chief executive officer, Prooftag, said, "We have been informed past our clients that counterfeiters have copied their security features like holograms and others. Through this feedback from our clients we observed that all the copying of security solutions happens when the solutions are developed past human effort or intervention. We have brought solutions like Bubble Tag and Cobweb Tag, which are developed on the footing of unique constellations of bubbles of fiber. These are generated completely at the moment they are checked. An epitome is so sent to the receiver, which clearly cuts the duplication procedure."
Dinesh Jain, director, Uniqolabel, in his presentation, highlighted how a characterization can help overcome counterfeiting with a case study. Kitply, a plywood brand from South India, faced a severe counterfeiting threat. Uniqolabel, with its AI features made it more interactive and helped to regain their lost customers and developed trust on their product. Sharing details, Jain said, "Kitply, a plywood sail, saw duplication that led to loss of its market hold and trust. It was a well-known brand then. The company thus adult a characteristic that scans the brand name on the production and tells whether the product is genuine or faux. This interactive feature was communicated well to the carpenters beyond India with workshops to spread word about buying 18-carat Kitply products, helping the company to regain 40% of its market share inside vi months."
Pankaj Bhasin, chief executive officer – Holography Partitioning, Uflex Limited spoke about how technology volition bring in alter for a meliorate future. He said, "Of all the solutions available globally for companies who would want to secure their products, the best solution is that consumers are able to identify genuine products quickly, without the assistance of whatever gadgets. The business model in companies needs a certain kind of remodelling or rearrangement to continue budgets bated for brand protection. Nosotros have not come up beyond a single complaint from our clients on counterfeits."
He further briefed on the solutions delivered by Uflex. The company sells around one crore holograms a month. For improve feel and aesthetics, Uflex offers Fresnel lens that shows a 3D ball or bubble-like structure on the surface of the packaging, thus making it easier to identify and offering stringent security. At the end of his presentation, Bhasin hinted towards Uflex developing an edible holography solution.
Strong laws and legal aids: The seminar looked at various aspects on the regulatory front, which need strengthening. Sunil Kumar, Indian Revenue Service (Community and CGST), educated on the import of counterfeited products and how government mechanisms deal with it. He said, "At the betoken of entry or during imports, products are sampled regularly based on risk-based-sampling arroyo. This enables the customs officials to examine the consignments in case of any suspicious activity identified. If suspicions are raised, the agent appointed by the company for import is informed for physical examination of the goods. The agent is given a x-day timeframe within which to submit a report on the suspicious consignment. Once the agent confirms on the counterfeiting of goods, the company's authorized personnel is called for undertaking the destruction of the counterfeited consignment. If an agent fails to submit his report within the x-24-hour interval timeframe, the goods are cleared. Here the destruction cost is borne by the company fully, according to the law."
Kumar believes that action should be taken against the respective state section which passed the counterfeited consignment.
Shreedhar Parundekar, senior manager, Brand Protection & Product Safety, Pidilite Industries Limited, shared, "Under Section 28 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), counterfeiting has been defined very well only it does non really deliver anything on it." Sharing recent activities in this regard, he said that the new Consumer Protection Bill 2022 was presented on 24 December 2017, and is undergoing changes. It suggests imposing heavy penalties and fining over counterfeited products.
Mandar Chandrachud, general manager, Legal & Head of IP, Godrej Industries and Associated Companies, spoke almost having a standard operating procedure (SOP) in place to handle these issues legally as well every bit internally. "We have set upwardly SOPs and the legal team works with the sales team on software. Once a complaint is raised, our system instantly problems alerts. The sales team validates whether the complaint is genuine and informs the legal team. If the complaint is validated, we conduct raids. Nosotros conducted effectually 50 raids in 2022 and now we merely comport 10 a month."
Surprise inspection and checks: Today, companies which are witting about their make paradigm do dedicate a squad or personnel to take care of their brand. A Brand Protection officeholder is a person who looks after any such issues like infringements, duplication or fake products circulated in the market. Companies in India should treat its spends on brand protection and legal actions for the same as an investment rather than merely a cost. These were some of the points highlighted by Parundekar of Pidilite Industries. He listed some measures that can exist included to overcome the challenge of counterfeiting. Setting upwardly a brand protection department which works hand-in-paw with other departments right from the design level, the industry should collectively vow for a change in regulations for counterfeiting like refilling in the used containers is not identified as counterfeiting, surprise audits and inspections, strong in-house communication, regular training for enforcement agencies similar community and police, and use of latest applied science for packaging of products.
Make protection squad/department: Vikas Ranjan, make protection director, Adidas Group, India, believes that in that location is a necessity to set a team or a department dedicated to brand protection and IPR. He said, "We at Adidas Group have experienced a lot of complaints regarding counterfeits. Footwear existence i of the nigh counterfeited category, our company had launched exclusive business outlets (EBOs) that sell products nether the Adidas Group. There is a demand to proceed a rails and audits of your supply chain, which will surely help bring down the counterfeiting issues." He also informed that the holographic tamper-evident seals are already used by all Adidas products but people are non buying those which are original. This is due to counterfeits being sold at a very low price.
Speakers and delegates at the Anti counterfeiting and Brand Protection Height 2018
Gaurav Mediratta, general manager – Legal, Hindustan Unilever Limited, opined, "We take our squad of 8 people defended for brand protection. We have tied up with research agencies like Nielsen, who undertakes enquiry on expect-alikes that we have in the market. Many of our FMCG brands have look-alike packaging."
Suggesting mechanisms to overcome these challenges, he said, "To combat counterfeits, a visitor should have track and trace, connections for regulating with community, reduced turnaround time for actions on counterfeiting, use of IT services, and legislation." The discussions also hinted at having a fifth P in marketing that is of Protection with regard to brand.
Panel discussions
During the panel discussions, Diwaker Bharadwaj, president – marketing communication and packaging development, Polycab Wires gave a presentation on how Polycab conducted anti-counterfeiting with their brand. He explained, "We ensured that our all security features are upward to the mark, so we zeroed down on 7 security features including a mix of holograms, barcode, micro text and others to make it hard to duplicate. Further, we too run loyalty programs for the electricians who are our primary target. We rewarded all electricians who reported fake products, which helped the states to catch the retailers. We have got a very good response from the electricians and our sales increased manifold." He also said that parallelly an advertisement campaign was run to educate people on buying 18-carat products.
Some of the primal points discussed during the course of the seminar included:
– fifteen-20% medicines are faux in India co-ordinate to FICCI Written report, 2015
– 45-50% drugs are substandard in countries similar India, China and Indonesia
– Trade incidents reported in a year are worth Rs. 75 billion dollars
– Despite of all this, the Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 does not even mention the discussion apocryphal in its 168 provisions.
The briefing concluded on the note that every company should have a dedicated squad or department for brand protection. As the industry is in a transition state with regard to anti-counterfeiting, in that location should exist stringent laws to safeguard the interests of the companies.
Source: https://packagingsouthasia.com/supply-chain-function/end-of-line/coding-and-marking/seminar-on-measures-to-combat-the-challenge-of-counterfeits/
Post a Comment for "Seminar on measures to combat the challenge of counterfeits"